The Fruit Of The Flesh V The Fruit Of The Spirit
Galatians 5:19-23 (NLT)—
‘When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, the results are very clear: sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarrelling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other sins like these. Let me tell you again, as I have before, that anyone living that sort of life will not inherit the Kingdom of God.’
But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!
As a child I learnt the song ‘The fruit of the Spirit’s not a coconut’ - check it out on Youtube if you’re not familiar. (Do it! Hilarious!) It’s the main reason that I know my fruit of the Spirit off by heart.
Galatians 5 lets us know that the fruit of the Spirit’s not a coconut (implied, I think) but also that ‘the fruit of the Spirit’s not sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarrelling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, envy, drunkenness and wild parties.’
Sadly these don’t quite scan into the song I learnt in the same way. (Try it!)
In this chapter Paul gives us a contrast between the fruit of the flesh and the fruit of the Spirit. We learn that the fruit of the Spirit brings life and freedom and change, but the fruit of the flesh brings destruction and despair.
The good news is that Jesus put all this bad 'fruit' to death on the cross, and so when we give our lives to him and put our trust in him, we can produce his fruit, rather than the fruit of the world.
Of course, the temptation of the flesh is still there, and this passage reminds us of where we can end up and what we can produce when we’re not full of the Spirit. However, I like to think of this less as scaremongering and more hope-bringing … life with Jesus is full of this good fruit! For me, Paul’s stark contrast between the fruit of the flesh and the fruit of the Spirit simply makes me want less of the flesh and more of the Spirit.
Prayer—Jesus, thank you that life with your Spirit produces good fruit. Help me to turn away from things that aren’t good, and to choose you in all I say and do.
