I love in Galatians 5 when it talks about the fruits of the Spirit. There’s love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. And I was reflecting with the Lord about this and how there’s all these different fruits of the Spirit, and if we want to gain more in one of those fruits of the Spirit that we feel like we don’t have, how would we do that?
Obviously, it comes through the Holy Spirit, of course. But as I was reflecting with Him, I was reminded of the principle of sowing and reaping, and that say I’m wanting to have more kindness in my life where I represent that fruit more, because the Bible says that people will know us by our fruit. And so He was just giving me this process of thought of where if I want to have more kindness in my life, then what I can do is start to sow that through action, start to sow that through words and deed. And so that could look like making a meal for someone that I know is maybe on a tight budget, or a new mom, or maybe if I see that someone has a need somewhere, coming in and starting to sow with action and deed of kindness and starting to release that in my life.
And as I sow, that’s something that then will become a habit and it’ll start to grow in my spirit as I’m a person of kindness and I start to release this. And maybe if I want to have more love in my heart, that’s something else that I could do. I could start to encourage people. I can make it a habit to go around and give out prophetic words and encourage people. I could go up to people and just, you know, if I see that they’re not doing well, I can ask God to release His love through me to be a vessel of that. I was thinking, too, as people see us and they’ll know us by our fruit, it’s really important as well with all of these fruits, I think as well, that they’re tied together with integrity. They’re tied together with steadfastness and living a life that’s above reproach and being people who people can look at and see a steadiness, a steadfastness of these things in our lives. And it’s a beautiful way that we can glorify God.
God has all of these attributes of the fruits of the Spirit as well, that’s so beautiful. He is loving, He’s joyful, He’s full of peace. He’s the Prince of Peace. He has patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. It’s so beautiful that each day we have hundreds and thousands of decisions that we get to make each day. And we might not even realize we’re making all these choices and decisions throughout our day, but His mercies are new every morning, and we get opportunities to step out and to be people of these fruits of the Spirit, to be people of love and kindness.
And so maybe reflect with the Lord and ask Him, “How can I be growing in the fruits of the Spirit? Which ones of these am I strong in? And which ones could I start to sow into more with my actions and my words and my deeds to be able to represent the Lord in these ways?” I believe that God wants us to look like this in Galatians 5, these fruits of the Spirit, because these are attributes that He so strongly carries and are such a core part of who He is, and that it glorifies Him when we walk in love, when we walk in joy, when we walk in peace, and patience, and kindness, and goodness, and faithfulness, and gentleness, and self-control.
When we walk in that type of life, in that type of way, it brings glory to God. And that’s what we’re here to do. That’s what we’re designed to do, is to be reflections of Him and how amazing He is. And so I pray that God would help you to develop whatever it is in your life that you’re wanting to develop that is more of your Father’s nature and His character. That you would glorify Him through every area of your life.