Kingdom Building
June 28, 2019
Scripture Reading: Galatians 5:1, 13-25
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. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit. –Galatians 5:22-25
The thing we may often miss when we read this scripture is that it is a call to self-improvement. The Fruit of the Spirit is outcomes not gifts. Paul does discuss gifts of the spirit in Romans 12:6–8 and 1 Corinthians 12:8–10 in reference to various skills and talents that are endowed to us to do our work in Kingdom Building. The Fruit of the Spirit is the development of attitudes and behavior that add synergy to our using those skills and talents. As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13 if we do not have love we might as well just be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. We may be the very best at a skill and never able to use it because we do not relate well with others.
Paul uses extreme language to describe our efforts to develop the fruit of the Spirit when he calls on us to crucify those things that keep us from loving; being joyous; having patience; being kind, generous faithful, and gentle; and practicing self-control. I joke about wanting patience and wanting it right now, but patience is a struggle for me. I am very goal oriented and must practice thoughtfulness and understanding of people who are not as goal oriented as I to attain patience. In like manner I have amazing self-control in some areas of my life but caught myself eating a cookie being served at SAMs club recently without a second thought. I did not need that cookie.
It, however, is interesting to me that this laundry list of qualities we are to strive for is described as fruit of the Spirit in the singular. They are all clumped together as one. I am milk intolerant and self-control has little to do with my avoiding milk. It comes with built in aversion therapy. When I first started working in child welfare, I had weekly meetings with a mother whose two pre-school children had recently been returned to her and her husband’s home after spending some time in foster care and the mother receiving some counselling on managing her behavior. The mother was making positive but slow progress including learning to nourish her children. My arrival at her home coincided with her daughters fourth birthday. The mother had baked a cake and bought iced milk to serve with it. I cannot tell you what a positive step this was in her development. I celebrated the birthday and ate the cake and iced milk and bragged on how good it was. The fruit of the Spirit is balanced to the needs of the others with whom we engaged in the Kingdom of God. The fruit of the Spirit is about nourishing relationships.
Prayer: Spirit of the Living God fall afresh on us as you empower us toward attaining the Fruit of your Spirit. Amen.
All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.