What Are The Fruit Of The Spirit In The Bible each fruit explained

you've probably heard of the fruits of the spirit in the bible if you've spent much time in church you've probably heard it taught on you've probably read it in your bible you can probably even name few it's one of the most common teachings from the new testament but what often happens when something becomes so familiar to us is that we just glance over it we don't give it second thought because we've heard it we know it but think with galatians chapter 5 and the fruits of the spirit this passage deserves closer look because it's incredible and it's powerful and think if we take just few minutes to look at what this verse says and how it applies to our life think we'll be challenged and encouraged in our faith and that's what want to do in this video want to take few minutes to break down each piece of the fruit and look at how it applies to our life but before we get into that let's take broad look at this passage and see what it says galatians chapter 5 verse 22 through 26 says this but the fruit of the spirit is love joy peace forbearance kindness goodness faithfulness gentleness and self-control against such things there is no law those who belong to christ jesus has crucified the flesh with its passions and desires since we live by the spirit let us keep in step with the spirit let us not become conceited provoking and envying each other now what paul is doing in this passage in galatians chapter 5 is he's comparing to lists if you were to go back and look at the verses prior to this one what you'd see is paul gave another similar list to this but it lists the fruit of the flesh it lists what happens when we live our life according to our own desires and our own wants and it's not positive list it's very negative list and he says listen if we live by life by the spirit we can actually have much better life and then he lists the fruit of the spirit that we just looked at and paul is basically looking at his readers and us today and saying which one do you want do you want this bad fruit or do you want this good fruit paul is laying out this argument that your life is producing some kind of fruit you don't get to change that you don't get to decide that you're producing something what you get to decide is what do you want to produce do you want to produce the fruits of the spirit or do you want to produce the fruits of the flesh and he's laying out the outcomes of both kinds of life and asking us which direction we want to go and what's interesting about this picture is that fruit doesn't come from nowhere right if you want fruit you have to go grow it it takes time it takes intentional actions over course of time to produce the fruit that you can enjoy and the same is true in your life you're not just going to wake up one day with this fruit if you want the fruits of the spirit it's going to take time to cultivate and it's going to take intentional action and watering and caring for that part of your life to produce these fruits of the spirit and what paul is arguing in galatians chapter 5 is that on our own we can't produce this good fruit we can't manufacture this love this joy this peace this patience this kindness and goodness we can't manufacture that on our own we need to let god into our life and allow him to cultivate these fruits in and through us it's not going to happen overnight but if we allow him this process in us then we will eventually start bearing good fruit so with that in mind let's break down each of the pieces of the fruit and see how it applies to our life the first fruit of the spirit that paul mentions is love and it should come as no surprise that this is the first one that leads off this list because this idea of love this concept of love is found throughout the whole bible and especially the new testament it's one of god's main attributes that he is loved so it should come as no surprise that when we allow god to cultivate something good within us that he's going to cultivate love now don't think we always have the best understanding of love and think that comes from our english language you see in the english language we only have one word for love and that can get kind of muddled little bit let me give you an example love my wife love my son love ice cream love football love the mountains now do in fact love all those things but don't love those things the same way but because of the limitations of the english language i'm forced to use the same word to describe my affinity towards each of those things but in the greek language which is what this passage was originally written in there was multiple words for love you had word for love that described friendship you had word for love that described erotic love you have word for love that described familiar love like within family and you had love that described the love that god has for us the agape the unconditional love and that's the word that's being used here it's the agape love the love that can only come from god and what's interesting about this this love is it's not based on feelings it's based on commitment and god is telling us that he's going to love us no matter what we do and he's saying if you let me produce this kind of love in you you too can display this love for those around you love that's not based on feeling love that's not going to dissipate depending on what happens or how you're feeling that day no it's it's love that is constant and steady that's looking out for what is best for those around you and this is the first fruit of the spirit it's fruit that we receive from god and that we are called to live out to those around us the fruit of love the second fruit that paul mentions is the fruit of joy think often we have this picture that god just wants us to follow him he doesn't care how we feel he doesn't care for happy he doesn't care for full of joy but time and time again in the bible we're told to be joyful people we're told to be filled with joy and this is what paul is promising us when we let god into our life to cultivate this fruit we should be full of joy but what we need to take note of is this isn't joy based on our circumstances paul's not saying that well you should be joyful because we'll have everything we want in life no he's saying you can have nothing but if you have jesus then you can be full of joy this joy isn't rooted in our circumstances it's rooted in who jesus is and what he's done for us the bible goes so far to tell us that we could be walking through the valley of the shadow of death and still be joyful because god is with us and so christians should be the most joyful people there are they should be filled with joy and people should wonder why are they so full of joy and that's our opportunity to tell them about what jesus has done for us the fruit of the spirit the second one is joy god wants to give you joy that's so deep rooted in your heart that nothing can take that from you the third fruit of the spirit that's promised to us is peace now peace is hard to come by our lives are chaotic our world is in disorder but jesus promises his followers peace and much like the joy that we just looked at the peace that were promised isn't rooted in our circumstances being peaceful it's rooted in jesus himself that regardless of what is happening around us we can have peace when we look at jesus you see what the bible teaches us is that peace isn't found in the absence of storms it's found in the presence of the one who's bigger than the storms and when we look to jesus when we keep our eyes on him we can have peace that transcends understanding that transcends our circumstances the peace of god is what is promised to us when we let god cultivate this fruit in us the next fruit of the spirit is patience now don't know about you but i'm not very patient person if you make me wait even just little bit or minorly inconvenience me i'm likely going to get little agitated but thankfully god's not that way with me he's incredibly patient with me and with you and what paul is saying here is he's saying if we let god cultivate this fruit in our life we too will become more patient now the word that paul uses here for patience it means long-suffering and avenging the wrongs that have been done to us he's not talking about being patient while waiting in line or driving in traffic no he's saying there are people that have wronged you there are people that have done evil against you and just as god is patient with you and your sin we too should be patient with what they've done to us and this is what god does so well with us in our wrongdoings in our sin in our actions that we've taken that have hurt our relationship with him he's been patient with us he hasn't come after us with hammer trying to beat us down no he's waited patiently for us to return to him so that he can restore us so that he can forgive us and he's even willing to take on the price of our sins on himself and now we're called to do the same for those that have wronged us and think that's what the world desperately needs right now isn't it it needs people it needs followers of jesus who understand that god's been patient with them so now they are going to be patient with those who have wronged them because we live in culture that's so quick to condemn and cancel and beat down those who have committed wrongs but often what people need is patience they need grace they need people that are slow to be angry that continue to love despite the wrongs that were done to them that's what the world needs and that's what god has promised to instill in us when we let him cultivate this fruit in our life the next fruit of the spirit that god wants to instill in us is kindness now don't know about you but wouldn't describe the world as kind place mean just go to the comment section on social media and you'll see the extent of hate that comes out towards one another but for followers of jesus we should be kind and this this word carries it with it this concept of moral goodness and gentleness that we shouldn't be harsh we shouldn't be bullying people we shouldn't be beating people down yet far too often far too often see christians see people claiming to follow jesus that are anything but kind they would rather criticize and throw stones and they feel justified in doing so because they got truth on their side but listen that's not how jesus acted mean the one person in all of human history who had the right to throw stones to criticize to condemn instead what did he do he showed kindness to those around him and this is what god wants to grow and cultivate in us is kind heart one that sincerely loves those in their life not one that weaponizes truth but one that loves people into god's truth the next fruit of the spirit is faithfulness and this literally means to believe or to have faith it means that we stick to our guns we stick to what we know is true that even when the going gets tough even when we might not fully understand what god is doing or maybe we don't even like what he's doing that we remain faithful that we trust that even though we don't understand that what he has for us that what he is doing is what's best and again as in all the other fruits of the spirit jesus modeled this perfectly when he was about to go to the cross we see his emotions that he was struggling in that moment but what did he do he didn't bail although he could have he remained faithful and this is the fruit that god wants to grow in our life that we will be faithful that we will commit to what we believe what we know to be true even when the circumstances of our life are really tough that god wants to grow this fruit in us that no matter what we will be faithful the next fruit of the spirit is gentleness and this word could also be translated as meekness and we don't tend to value this in our culture it's the powerful who win it's those who go out and take what is theirs those are the ones that we think get the good life but jesus actually gives us different way he says it's those who have their strength under control that's what it means to be meek that's what it means to be gentle it means to keep our strength under control it means that we don't use our strength to bully or push others over to go after what we want it means that we use our strength for the benefit of those around us mean consider how god is gentle with us he could destroy us he has every right to he's capable to and let's be honest we often deserve it but instead god keeps his strength under control he displays gentleness towards us and it's in that gentleness that we can see that he's good god that loves us that cares for us that has what's best for us and that's what draws us to him it's his gentleness and that's the same kind of attitude that we're called to display towards those around us and again this isn't something our culture values this isn't something that we come by naturally so if you want to be gentle if you want your strength to come under control if you want your strength to be used for the benefit of those around you rather than for yourself you need to let god cultivate this gentleness deep within you so that you can keep your strength under control and use it for the benefit of those around you the last fruit of the spirit is self-control and this means to be in control of our body our mind and our desires you see we often think that freedom means that can do whatever want but often when we take that freedom to the extreme what ends up happening is we end up being entrapped or enslaved as slave to our desires and that's not really freedom you see freedom is when we are in control of our desires in control of our mind and control of our body when we don't let it do whatever it wants or whatever it pleases no it's when we keep it in control when we keep it in check and self-control should be marker for every christian's life we shouldn't become addicted to dependent on or in need of anything other than god we should be in control of our desires and be able to direct them towards god and nothing else or no one else you see self-control means that christians are in control of their desires rather than slave to them now that we've looked at what the fruit of the spirit are want to end this video with question are those the markers for your life do you see those fruits being produced in your life do you want them to be do you want love joy peace patience kindness goodness gentleness and self-control do you want those fruits to be produced in your life because what paul is arguing is if you want that if you want more of those things in your life the only way to grow that fruit the only way to cultivate that fruit is when we look to god when we try to do it on our own we're never going to be able to produce that fruit and we're going to end up with much worse kind of result in our life we're going to end up with rotten fruit that doesn't deliver what we hoped or what it promised what paul is arguing in galatians chapter 5 is that god is the one who cultivates and grows this fruit so what are you growing in your life and listen we're never going to be perfect this side of heaven god gives us grace in our mistakes but if we allow him to continually work in our life we're going to produce more and more of this kind of fruit so if you want the fruit of the spirit to be the markers of your life if you want that to be what your life produces look to god go to him spend time in prayer and studying god's word and you're going to start to see over time not overnight not tomorrow but you're going to see over time this fruit develop you're gonna see that you're being more loving you're being more patient you're being more kind you're in more control over the things of your life if you look to god and allow him to cultivate this in you thanks for watching this video hope that it challenged and encouraged you in your life and your faith if it did would you like this video and then also leave comment and let me know which of the fruit of the spirit most stood out to you which of the fruits of the spirit do you most want to cultivate in your life and don't forget to subscribe to this channel so you can stay up to date on future content that's coming out thanks for watching we'll see you next time you