Really Living
The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance.
Galatians 5:22–23
The moment you come to Christ, the Spirit of God brings the life of God into you and you begin to live. For the first time you begin to live with a capital L. There’s a spring in your step and a joy in your soul and a peace in your heart, and life has taken on a new outlook.
There’s a whole new direction to your life because the Spirit of God has given to you the very life of God, and God is an eternal God—that means you’ll live as long as God lives.
The Bible also teaches us that the Spirit of God produces the fruit of the Spirit. Now these nine clusters of fruit are to characterize the life of every Christ-born child of God. But what do we find? We find in the average so-called Christian today the very opposite.
Everyone before he comes to Christ is dominated by one nature—the “old man,” which is also called the “flesh,”—which controls your life. You’re controlled by your ego; you’re controlled by yourself. The moment you receive Christ as your Savior, that self is put down, and Christ is put on the throne in your life and the Spirit of God dominates your life.
However, self is still there—sometimes hidden, sometimes quiet, sometimes secondary—waiting his opportunity and his chance to attack the citadel of your soul and take control again.
As a Christian you have the willpower to yield either to the flesh and live a fleshly, carnal life; or you have the power to yield to the Spirit, to live a Spirit-filled life. Our life is an up-and-down experience. God never meant it to be that way. God meant the Christian life to be on the highest possible plane at all times, bearing the fruit of the Spirit.
Our Father and our God, thank You for the joy You bring to my life. Every day I put away my “old self ” again and choose to follow You. Please help me keep my commitment to You in a dynamic and effective way. I love You, Lord, and I pledge my heart to You. Through Christ, my Lord. Amen.
Billy Graham, Unto the Hills: A Daily Devotional (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2010).