Fruit of the Spirit
Galatians 5
22 By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things. 24 And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 25 If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit. 26 Let us not become conceited, competing against one another, envying one another. (NRSV)
Over the years I have had varied success with gardening. Tomatoes and peppers that were too abundant, causing us to give many away. Other years having plants that produced little to no fruit on them at all. Would we argue that the years a plant, which grew no tomatoes or peppers on it, wasn’t a tomato or pepper plant? Maybe, but I doubt it. I think we would simply describe it as a plant that did not do what it was supposed to do. But we can see that each plant is what it is. But what each plant is (tomato, pepper, or anything else) should be seen by the fruit which comes from it. But it is not a tomato plant by virtue of growing tomatoes. It grows tomatoes by virtue of being a tomato plant.
I know I have heard sermons making the fruit of the Spirit a task list for us, something we are to try to do. I may have done it myself, but my recall is not there. I’ll assume I have made this error as well. But this is not a list of tasks to do. It is a statement of what we are, who we are. The command is not to produce this fruit, it is to live by the Spirit. In other words, if (since) we have the Holy Spirit in us we should live by the guiding/leading of the Holy Spirit in us. The fruit of the Spirit is something that describes who we are. We then live out of who we are, or who we are becoming.
In the image of fruit from plants and then taking it to our being disciples who have the Holy Spirit in us, we are not Christians because we show the fruit of the Spirit. We should be seeing those because we follow Jesus and we have the Holy Spirit in us. We can still try to work on being those who have the fruit of the Spirit, but we find that it is more effective to live out of who we are becoming and let the Spirit make this be who we are becoming. Then, rooted in Jesus by the work of the Spirit, we will see that who we are becoming shows in the fruit of the Spirit in us.
Who are we? We are people seeking to follow Jesus. People who have been given the faith to believe and follow by the Holy Spirit at work in us. We are being changed to look like the one we follow – Jesus.