This passage of Scripture spotlights how God's Spirit empowers those in Christ to serve others in adoration and how we can live by the power of the Holy Spirit. Be that as it may, we should permit the Holy Spirit to lead us.
We all have sinful desires (flesh), but in order to follow the Holy Spirit, we must deal with these issues. At the point when we do not, our childishness will lead us into a wide range of things in this world. We cannot ignore them.
Then again, when we live by the Spirit, we acquire more by simply not living in wrongdoing. What emerges from us is an assortment of strong, positive qualities.
The spontaneous works of the Holy Spirit result in fruit that is displayed. We cannot bear fruit unless we allow Christ to work in us through the Holy Spirit.
How Can We Have a Fruitful Life?
Assuming that our longings are driving us toward the characteristics recorded in Galatians 5:22-23, then we should be able to realize that the Holy Spirit is driving us. Simultaneously, we should also be careful of mistaking our affections with the leading of the Holy Spirit.
In this way, being driven by the Holy Spirit includes the craving to hear, the status to submit to God's Word, and the aversion to recognize our sentiments and the promptings of the Lord. We ought to experience every day guided and directed by the Holy Spirit.
Then, at that point, when we live every day guided by the Holy Spirit, which is when the expressions of Christ will be in our hearts and minds, the love of Christ will appear in our activities, and the intensity of Christ will assist with controlling our wants and desires.
Paul is telling us of the powers that are at work inside of us, the Holy Spirit, and the evil tendencies. The Holy Spirit is, of course, stronger, yet we are frail. If we are left to our own knowledge, we will settle on inappropriate decisions.
If we attempt to stroll in the Spirit by our own human exertion, we will come up short. The best approach to freedom from our human wants is through the enabling of the Holy Spirit (Romans 6:12; Romans 8:9; Ephesians 4:23-24; Colossians 3:3-80).
What Does it Mean to Be in the World?
We, as a whole, have natural worldly longings, and we cannot overlook them. For us to heed the Holy Spirit's direction, then we should manage them conclusively and unequivocally (Galatians 5:24).
These cravings incorporate clear sins, yet, they likewise incorporate more subtle sins like aspiration, outrage, and jealousy.
The individuals who disregard such sins or decline to manage them uncover that they have not gotten the endowment of confidence (gift of faith) that prompts a changed life.
The “works of the flesh” include the following: adultery, fornication, uncleanliness, lust, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, disagreement, emulation, wrath, strife, resistance to authority, heresies, envy, murder, drunkenness, and reveling (Romans 13:12-13; 1 Corinthians 6:9; Ephesians 5:5).
But Not of the World
The “fruit of the Spirit” is the unconstrained work of the Holy Spirit in us. The Spirit creates these characteristics, which are found in Christ’s nature.
They are the side-effects of Christ's guidance in our lives, and we cannot get them by attempting to acquire them. For the fruit of the Spirit to develop in us, we should bind our lives together with Christ (John 15:4-5).
We should know Him, love Him, and endeavor to resemble Him. The outcome will be that we will satisfy the expected purpose behind the Law, cherishing God and man.
Since God sent the Law, he likewise sent the Spirit. The consequences of a Spirit-filled life are in concordance with the plan of God's Law.
An individual who is wealthy in the fruit of the Spirit satisfies the Law obviously better than an individual who observes the customs yet has little love in his heart. Which of these characteristics do we want the Spirit to create in us?
What Is the Fruit of the Spirit?
The “fruit of the Spirit” includes the following: love, joy, peace, longsuffering (patience), gentleness (mildness of manner), goodness, faith, meekness (enduring without resentment), and temperance (self-control) (Galatians 5).
To be able to acknowledge Christ as our Savior, we must abandon our wrongdoings and readily nail our natural fiendish longings to the cross.
However, that does not imply that we will never observe those wants or desires again because Christians, despite everything, still have the ability to sin.
Be that as it may, we have been liberated from the power of sin over us, and we no longer need to surrender to it. Every day we should submit our worldly desires to God, bind them daily, and consistently draw on the Holy Spirit's capacity to defeat them (Galatians 2:20; 6:14).
God is keen on all parts of our lives, not simply the spiritual aspect. As we live by the power of the Holy Spirit, we must present each part of our lives to God, which includes the physical aspect, the social part, the scholarly or intellectual, the emotional, and the professional.
According to Paul, “You are saved, so live and carry on like it.” The Holy Spirit is the wellspring of our new life, so we ought to stroll through life with him.
We should not let any person or anything else decide our qualities and principles in any aspect of our life. Only the Lord is to have that control.
We, as a whole, need a specific measure of endorsement from other people. In any case, the individuals who make a special effort to obtain respect and distinctions or to win ubiquity with many individuals show that they are not following the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
The individuals who seek God for endorsement will not have to look for it from others. As the children of God, we have his Holy Spirit as the caring assurance of his endorsement (Romans 6:6; Romans 6:13; Galatians 5:16; Philippians 2:3; Romans 8:5).
Why Does This Matter?
We should set ourselves vigorously to mortify the deeds and desires of the flesh and to stroll in our new life.
Not being covetous of vain-greatness, or unduly wanting for the regard and adulation of men, not inciting, or begrudging of each other, yet looking to deliver all the more plentifully the good fruits of the Spirit, which are, through Jesus Christ, to the acclaim and wonders of God.
We are to get down off of our self-righteous platforms and begin walking life in the Spirit. The Christian life is not like a hot air balloon ride that leads to some extraordinary overwhelming experience of life taking off into the clouds.
Yet rather, it is an everyday walk. It involves us placing one foot in front of the other, taking one step at a time, in reliance upon the Holy Spirit.
Living and walking a Christian life means to live and walk with a daily existence directed by the Holy Spirit’s power. The Holy Spirit living within us and through us will help us with doing God’s will. The Holy Spirit directs our hearts so that we will want to be more like Christ.
For further reading:
What Does the Bible Say about the Fruit of the Spirit?
Why Should We Not Be Conformed to This World?
What Are the Fruits of the Spirit?
What Does it Mean ‘The Spirit Is Willing but the Flesh Is Weak’?
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Chris Swanson answered the call into the ministry over 20 years ago. He has served as a Sunday School teacher, a youth director along with his wife, a music director, an associate pastor, and an interim pastor. He is a retired Navy Chief Hospital Corpsman with over 30 years of combined active and reserve service. You can contact Chris here, and check out his work here.