Fruits of the Spirit

In this extra special birthday issue of Christis we have for you, the discerning reader, a veritable bonanza of market stall fare. Here for to tempt your taste buds are the FRUITS OF THE SPIRIT!!!

Joy

Joy: this is what you feel when your ears finally stop ringing from a night at Toffs, right? This is certainly something that makes me happy, but surely there is more to ‘joy’ than this?

To me this ambiguous word means something much deeper. As Paul says in Philippians 1:4 “In my prayers for all of you I always pray with joy.”, indicating a more inwardly based force. Joy then can be an inner peace for those who come to know Christ’s love. As a Christian I feel an amazing sense of stability and calm with the knowledge I have of God’s strength working in me. There are still times when I feel amazingly happy (like when I’m eating Cookies and Cream Haagen Dazs at 2:00am), and others (like when I miss Neighbours twice in a day) when I just feel like chopping up my Mondex card and being done with the whole thing. But to all this, I know I have the constant factor of the Holy Spirit working in me.

Joy is an amazing element of Christianity. To emphasise its importance, in the relatively short letter Philippians it is referred to sixteen times!

My point being that whatever happens, God’s love is constant. Therefore search for this inner joy, and to quote an over used phrase:—

Self control

Oddly enough, when it came to asking people to write about Self Control, the response was less than overwhelming. Love, Joy and Peace were a doddle to find people for (and thanks to them), but when it came to the last Fruit of the Spirit, everyone shuffled their feet and looked elsewhere. Now why should that be? Perhaps it’s because attributes such as Patience, Kindness and Goodness are all light, fluffy and the kind of qualities which the world would have us all embrace. Self control, however, is a more personal, more ‘keep-it-between-me-and-God’ aspect of our Christian lives. Why? Because it’s a quality which needs to be individually developed ( hence the word ‘self’), because it’s one of the most embarrassing ‘fruits’ to admit you’re having problems with and because self control is seen as being a bit conservative, Holier-than-Thou and stuffy.

No-one wants to put Christianity forward as being a harsh, prescriptive faith, full of self-denial and condemnation — in fact it’s all we can do to work against that same image which the church has had for centuries. But being self-controlled is far more than being a spoil-sport. No-one likes to be the only sober person at a party, or the only clubber who hasn’t got off with half the dance floor, but it is the perfect way to stand up for your faith (Ed.— Amen to that). I found this in a Guide for Freshers article in the Big Issue the other day:

It’s encouraging to note that it does make a positive impression on those around us. Self control is the key to being able to fully enjoy ourselves, not an unfortunate quality that Paul inconveniently put into the list in Galatians 5. If we are living controlled (not restrained) lives then we are more open to all the wonders that God has to offer us. As Jesus says in John 10 verse 10 “I have come that you might have life and have it to the full” If we try to master self control then we are 90% of the way to possessing all the other Fruits of the Spirit.

Love — it’s not fluffy

Jesus said we are to love God with everything we’ve got and to love others as ourselves (Matt 22:37–39). That’s great but how is this love worked out in reality? Jesus was very clear when He said “If you love me, keep my commandments” (John 14:15, see also 1 John 2:3–5). Therefore our response should be as the Psalmist’s “Oh how I love your law!” Indeed, love is the fulfilment of the law. (Romans 13:10)

Where does this love come from? “From a pure heart, from a good conscience and from sincere faith” (1 Tim 1:5) In other words, our love for God and for others starts in the heart and is shown in humble and willing obedience to God’s right ways. John says “By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren … let us not love in word or tongue but in deed and in truth.” (1 John 3: 16,18) Challenging? Yep, but we have no choice … love is more than a fluffy feeling in the Scriptures.

Love

I have no idea how many times the word “love” appears in the Bible, but I know that the figure is high. Of all the fruits of the Spirit, it is love by which Jesus lays the greatest store.. Our Lord God loves us so much that he voluntarily bore the intense mental, physical and spiritual suffering that we deserve for our sins, through his crucifixion. He does not love people because they are good, nor because they are knowledgeable, or wise, or beautiful.. He loves us because he loves us. He loves us because he is a loving God. (Ed. — praise the Lord He is so brilliant!)

This is a love greater than anyone can comprehend, but it is this depth of love that God wants us to experience in our relationship with him, through the inspiration of his Holy Spirit; and it is this depth of love that he wants us to show to others. Praising him and worshipping him in Church and within the Christian societies on campus is one way of showing our gratitude to him, but if that is as far as it goes, then it is no wonder that our predominantly secular society is not convinced of the Christian Truth. Although salvation is through faith and not through works, a faith which did not influence one’s thoughts and actions would be empty and superficial — if we love someone we try to please them by doing the things that we know they approve of, and by attempting to refrain from doing those things which they dislike.

God gives us so many opportunities of expressing our love for him, through speech and action, both to our friends and to strangers, and yet so often we choose not to take advantage of them … we are too afraid, or too self-centred, to be the witness we know we owe it to him to be. Perhaps this term, as we experience the depths of God’s love in our lives, we should spend more time in acknowledgement of how much our Lord has done for us; and we should consider how we can best use the gifts he has given us to glorify him and to show others something of his incredible, unfailing love.

Goodness

Are you a good person? Maybe, like me, you don’t think you are all the time, but hope you are some of the time. I say that, because I’ve a little problem with this particular Fruit of the Spirit. God’s Spirit produces goodness, but we are not always good — so do we always have this Spirit within us?

Someone with real Biblical knowledge (ie, not me) can answer that. I’d like you to look in Luke Chapter 10, where “an expert in the law” asks Jesus who his neighbour is. The Lord replies with the parable of the Good Samaritan. Helping someone in great need, as that Samaritan did, is surely one of the greatest practical examples of goodness to a fellow human. Maybe that Samaritan had God’s Spirit within him. Paul writes: “The Spirit has given us life; he must also control our lives.” So: are we good enough to let him?

Faithfulness

Loyalty and fidelity are qualities rewarded by God. However the elder son in the parable of the prodigal son, got a very ordinary reward for displaying them — life with his Father. Does God really have so little time for the faithful? The parable is allegorical. We are sometimes like the prodigal son. Whether we leave God behind altogether for a time, or just have a brief independence from him, we’ve all done it. I also hope that we have had our times of faithfulness, when we’ve stayed close to the Father. If we think of it this way, Jesus’ message is very comforting. If we wander a bit, we only need to regret our actions and we’ll get another chance.

While if we stay faithful we get everything, and with God that really is something. How then is it done? With God’s help. That is why it’s a gift of the Holy Spirit. To be “Full of Faith” is something we have to be open enough to accept. It won’t be an easy ride; He didn’t promise having faith would be. But we’re not alone, and that’s half the battle. And when we fail? Well, we get the red carpet treatment if we return.

Kindness

My life here is one big rush of confusion
Lecture-seminar-library-sport-washing-eating …
I don’t have time for other people
(I don’t even have time for myself!)

Kindness?
Doesn’t that involve time I don’t have?
Making space for other people?
Isn’t that … embarrassing?

I’m sure no-one wants my advice.
They’ll think I’m nosy if I ask,
“What’s the matter?”
What’s my sympathy worth anyway?

Worse still, they might laugh at me,
Or even take me for granted,
If I do their washing up.
(Anyway, they never do mine.
Why should I be the one to get wrinkly fingers?)

I’d rather not be noticed,
Be a “good Christian”
I’d rather keep my head down,
Get on with my own life.
I’d rather not be kind.

Where’s God in this? I’ve found it a struggle since being here to make time for Him, to allow His Spirit to produce fruit in me. I’m increasingly aware that I’ve ignored Him when He’s been prompting me to do a simple act of kindness, like my housemate’s washing up. The thing is, people do notice, and are grateful, when someone is kind, so I know that I’ve got to stop making the kind of petty excuses that I’ve made in the poem (or random collection of thoughts!) above — more than that, I need to do so because Jesus has called me to live by His Spirit and do His will. To evangelise effectively we need to live out as well as speak out God’s word, and then hopefully people will understand that as Christians we are concerned about the needs and hurts of others and are not just wrapped up in our own ‘happy-clappy’ world.

Patience

… Resisting the temptation of turning to the last page of a Stephen King novel
… Being able to ignore the clock when someone is late.
… The ability to wait till tomorrow and tomorrow and …
… Realising that yesterday is an unreasonable deadline.
… Not pretending to live next door so that you receive your post sooner.
… Not reading the Radio Times on a Saturday so that you know what is happening in Neighbours.
… Not timing the person in the shower …

It is knowing that despite the frustration felt when waiting for things to happen that …
“All shall be well and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well” ^*

It is remembering that “there is a time for everything and a season for every activity under heaven” Eccl. 3:1

Peace

In John chapter 14 where Jesus prepares his disciples for his imminent betrayal and death he promises them two wonderful gifts: his Holy Spirit and peace. The Lord Jesus tells his friends that the divine counsellor will make his home in their souls and minds, constantly reminding them of his commands. Only through obedience to Jesus can we know peace with God and other people. It is a relief to hear Jesus say:

I have often attempted to find comfort and peace in the World by having a few more drinks than I should, going out with mates and stuff like that. But at the end of it when it’s just me, in a room, late at night, there is only one person who can be the peace I need. The Lord Jesus is so amazing! So perfect and true. By enjoying our freedom to walk straight into the presence of Almighty God we know this peace in our lives, because he protects us and works out everything for the good of his kingdom. The most exciting thing about the Lord’s promise of peace is that it will LAST. It won’t fade as we get old, (like the memory of Assessed Essays churned out term by term) but his presence will become even more vital to our lives. Best of all we will experience perfect peace in heaven — forever and ever. I can’t wait!

Gentleness

Gentleness is more than just an attitude or feeling: it is a way of acting and behaving towards others. Philippians 2:4 says that we should “look not only to [our] own interests, but also to the interests of others” and this sums up for me what gentleness is really about. It is not just about taking into account the feelings, hopes, joys, sorrows and particularities of character of others but about acting upon all of these as if they were our own. Sharing in each other’s good and bad times and acting towards others as if they were ourselves, being prepared to take that time out of our schedule to give to someone else, is what gentleness is about and its rewards can be deeper relationships with our friends, families and loved ones. A gift that the world so often mistakes for weakness is a real source of strength and support.


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