The Fruit of the Spirit

The Fruit of the Spirit, Jesus, and Why I Will Be Different in Heaven

The Fruit of the Spirit is a portrait of Jesus

Jesus was filled with the Spirit and perfectly displayed the fruit of the Spirit his entire life. He was love always. Was filled with joy. Said, peace I give but not as the world gives. So patient as to allow Judas to walk with him for three years. Shocking kindness and goodness to the outcasts of society. He was faithful all the way to the cross. Cried out to the masses, come to me, I am lowly and gentle of heart. So self-controlled as to allow mere men to beat him, spit on him, flog him, and kill him while holding all power at his fingertips.

Is there a better description of the life and character of our Savior than the one before us. This should cause our hearts to weep and dance that we have such a Savior. His life was so stunningly beautiful. Praise you Jesus for showing us how we were made to live.

The fruit of the Spirit is the restoration of life as we were created for. We weren’t made to live by the flesh. That list sounds more like animal life than human life. We were made for so much more. You were made for so much more and Christ died on the Cross to cleanse us from sin and its destruction and restore us to a relationship with our Creator. This comes when we as sinners repent and believe in Jesus as our Savior. Have you believed?

Christians, this is another part of salvation to rejoice in. The baptism of the Spirit begins our life in the Spirit in which the Spirit is slowly recreating in us the kind of life God intended for us to live. A Spirit-filled Christian is back in the garden of Eden. A Spirit-filled home is family as God intended. The Church is the vibrant life and joy of God experienced in community. Imperfectly because the flesh retains its influence. But Christian, I want you to look carefully at this list…

Christian, look carefully, this is you (and everyone else) in eternity

This rotten self-destructive flesh I have and you have. We will have it until the day we die or Jesus returns. That’s the bad news. The good news is that when we step from this world to the next, we shed the sin nature and all its destruction. We breathe the pure air of heaven and the only inclination we have is to love. Total Love. Maximum joy. Perfect peace with God, others, and myself. Nothing but patience, kindness, and goodness toward others. Everyone good and gentle toward one another. Everyone under the Spirit’s leadership.

Every second of every minute of every hour of every day for all of eternity, we will experience the fruit of the Spirit to the max.

Think of what that will be like? I can’t wait to meet the future version of some of you. I might not recognize you. You might not recognize me. We will likely be saying to each other, what happened to you?

Here’s the thing. Whenever we express the fruit of the Spirit now, we are bringing the life of heaven to earth. It’s a little whiff of the heavenly air. It’s heaven on earth. Have you noticed? When we love each other in spite of failure. When we give of ourselves. When acts of kindness are felt. There is this inward sense of something. Hard to put your finger on it. A sense that this is the way things ought to be. This is right. This is good. This the life of heaven, by the Spirit, produced as fruit in us.

© 2010 Steve DeWitt. You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that: (1) you credit the author, (2) any modifications are clearly marked, (3) you do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, (4) you include Bethel’s web site address (http://www.bethelweb.org/) on the copied resource.