Introduction
What is the character of Christ really like? What is the nature of His life? We want to answer these questions. The “person” of Christ is now at the right hand of the Father in Heaven. But by His Spirit, His presence can be in you and in me and in every believer throughout the world. “But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. now if any man has not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his”. Romans 8:9. A little baby receives from its parents the nature and character of the family. The nature will develop as the child continues to grow.
Many physical traits soon appear eye skin and hair colour. Bone size and height take a longer time to develop; but the image of the family is readily seen. Sometimes we say, that child is truly the picture of its parents. The same is true in the family of God. When we were born into god’s family, we received Christ’s life and His nature. We too are to develop into His image. The nature and character of His life is to grow in us as we grow in Him.
A. CHRIST’S CHARACTER IS THE FRUIT OF SPIRIT
The fruit of the Spirit is a beautiful word picture of Christ’s character. Each fruit is a specific quality of His life an aspect of His being. The same is seen in nature. White light is broken up into all of the colours of the rainbow colour of Christ’ life. The fruit of the Spirit speaks of the beautiful aspects of Christ’s life. We might therefore outline the fruit of the Spirit as follows.
1. Inward Blessing
a. Love: being lovely within
b. Joy: being joyful within
c. Peace: being peaceful within
2. Outward Blessing
a. Patience: patience with others
b. Kindness: kind to others
c. Goodness: good to others
3. Upward Blessing
a. Faithfulness: faithful to God
b. Meekness: humble before God
c. Self-control: controlled by God
One reality sees that the blessing above easily cross over one another. If we are lovely within, we will be loving to others and to the Lord as well. It does show, however how the fruit of the Spirit reaches out in all directions to bring life, great blessing. The above list includes many of the important traits of Christ’s life, but there are others as well. Paul gives these nine fruits as examples for us to study.
B. KEYS TO A FRUITFUL LIFE
1. Being Versus Feeling
It is important for us to see that the fruit of the Spirit tells us what Christ is these are qualities of His being. Christ is not only lovely; He is love. He is not only joyful; He is joy. He is not peaceful; He is peace. When we have Christ within, we have the love, joy and peace that Christ is. Therefore, as a result of what we have and are in Him we too can be lovely, lovely, joyful and peaceful.
2. Difficulties Bring forth the Finest Fruit
This brings us to another truth about the fruit of the Spirit. It grows best from the difficult ground of our daily lives. We face many things every day that are opposed to our life in Christ. Instead of love, we face hatred and hostility. Instead of peace, we find pressure, tension, discord and strife. These dark forces work their way into the people, places and events of our earthly affairs. Sometimes we wish we could run away and escape from it all. Usually we can’t and even if we could, it might not bring the relief we want. This would be every true if part of the problem is a result of our own attitudes and actions. God does have an answer, however most of our problems within or without are caused by forces which oppose the fruit of the Spirit, we can call these forces the fruit of the flesh our old sin nature.
· Fruit of Sprit
1. Love: hatred, selfishness, jealousy, resentment
2. Joy: sadness, grief, depression, self-pity
3. Peace: worry, fear, strife, conflict, tension
4. Patience: impatient, hasty, short-tempered
5. Kindness: cruel, rude, harsh
6. Goodness: evil, wicket, immoral, greedy
7. Faithfulness: careless, unreliable, dishonest
8. Meekness: proud, dogmatic, judgmental
9. Self-control: unruly, undisciplined, messy
Good