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In Galatians chapter 5, we read a well-known passage.  It’s been memorized.  It’s been turned into more than one song for kids to remember it easily.  It’s a list many of us run through mentally to keep ourselves in check…

“By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.  There is no law against such things.”

Often we are tempted casually to treat these things the same way we would the “gifts” of the Spirit found in 1 Corinthians 12:8-13.  That we may have especially gifted in one or two of these areas, and the others are meant to carry the load where we are weak.  I’m great at love and joy, so let someone else cover me in the area of generosity or gentleness.  That’s the balance of my fruit basket.

Until we look at the language used by Paul, and understand where he was coming from.  Paul says “the fruit of the Spirit is…”.  He does not say “the fruits of the Spirit are…”.  As in the Greek concept of the cardinal virtues that Paul was very familiar with, to have one – the others must be present.  Paul is saying here that a community that experiences the presence of the Spirit in their lives will have the complete “fruit” as listed.  I suppose that’s also worth noting, that Paul is speaking to a community.  This fruit of the Spirit is the gift of God’s grace, but also cultivated by an entire community, not an isolated individual.

It is also important to note the presence of “self-control” at the end.  I posted a few thoughts recently on self-control.  Often we can be lured into the false assumption that if I pray “Jesus come into my heart”, and His Spirit is presently working in our lives, this is the fruit that will naturally begin to be harvested.  If it was something that would come naturally, without effort on our part…then why add “self-control” to it all?

The truth is, much like tending an orchard, the fruit does begin to show up..often in supernatural ways.  Giving our lives to God, after all, is an infinitely compelling life change.  But it takes effort on our part as well.  Pruning away branches, cultivating the soil, keeping away birds and squirrels, etc.  Otherwise this would simply be another list talking about the “gifts” of the Spirit.

May we each seek to cultivate the Spirits’ “love-joy-peace-patience-kindness-generosity-faithfulness-gentleness-self-control” in our lives this week….

For our recent vacation, I burned us an MP3 cd full of podcasts.  Many of them were preaching or lecture/interviews with authors I enjoy.  Many of them were on parenting, or specifically for dads or moms.  Then there were a few in there just for fun…I think at least one old Fibber McGee and Molly episode. 🙂

One of the talks was by Susie Larson, who has recently written a book called “Growing Grateful Kids”, which is also the title of her talk.  She had some very good things to say (much better than her other message on the same cd about “Release” or something like that….whew).  One of the things that stood out was something I’ve thought about in other areas lately also…the topic of self-discipline.

So many places in scripture talk about the important of “self-control”.  It’s one of the fruits of the Spirit, and it’s also one of the four Cardinal Virtues popular in Greek philosophy.  Something that has been talked about and sought after for centuries.

But seems, even in circles of those following Christ, to be a very quietly pursued virtue/fruit.

Lately it seems like, and I’m sure it’s nothing new really, we try to find more and more ways to make something permissible rather than to deny ourselves.  Yet, if the only thing we ever deny ourselves is when a law or a commandment in scripture demands it of us….do we really experience self-control?  When is the last time you told yourself no…but because of a rigid diet, not because you’re committed to something else, and not because someone else imposed restrictions or recommendations on you….but simply to experience sacrifice?

In her talk, Susie brought up an older child who had been raised by his parent to make sure other “things” weren’t in control of their life.  At one point the young man tells his mom he’s decided (not associated with Lent) to give up Computers for a while, because they were demanding too much of his life, and seemed to be “controlling” more than they should.

It seems like a good way to practice, develop, and strengthen our “self-control” would be to deny ourselves something on a regular basis.  Not something we should say no to, either.  But something we could very easily say yes to, and probably even want to say yes to.  May we find and exercise some self-control today, in the name of Jesus…and may our decision bear His fruit. 🙂