But the fruit of the spirit is LOVE, JOY, PEACE, LONGSUFFERING, KINDNESS, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. (Galatians 5:22, 23, NKJV).
Ancient Hippies
I believe it is impossible to immerse yourself in the study and meditation of God's Word and come away thinking you are something. I am astonished at Christians who believe and act as if they are something special IN AND OF THEMSELVES.
Every letter in the New Testament is corrective. Every exhortation for right behavior is an explicit declaration that our tendency, even as Christians, is the opposite. "Husbands love your wives…" is there because we husbands are airheads and forget our purpose and role. "Children obey your parents…" is a reminder to naturally rebellious and disobedient children to behave otherwise. "Wives submit to your husbands as is fitting the Lord…" would be an unnecessary instruction if the natural tendency of the saved wife was to facilitate that perfect corporate partnership that is God's intention for marriage in Christ.
Face it! We are losers this side of Heaven. The difference, the ONLY difference, between our failure as Christians to live up to God's standards and the rest of the world's, is that we have NO EXCUSE. We, through Christ, have been "set free from sin". It no longer "has dominion over us." We have "Christ within us, the hope of glory." We are "new creations" empowered to live life in a new way, not by our own delusional self-determination, but by the Spirit of God. That we fail constantly anyway is not exactly a reason to pat ourselves on the back.
PRIDE is the most deleterious, noxious, toxic and counterproductive work of the flesh. It is an obstacle to EVERYTHING godly. And it takes so many subtle and pervasive forms that it is like a relentless, rapidly adaptive bacteria that spits in the face of all the latest antibiotics. (That was a really good sentence and I am proud of it… see what I mean!)
There is, however, an antidote, that if we would only humble ourselves enough to take it daily (every waking second even), we would see immediate improvement. It's this: strive to enter His rest, to not quench the Spirit, to cease from working in our own strength, because it is God who works in us both to will and to do for His good pleasure (Php 2:13; 1Th 5:19; Heb 4:11). In other words, we need to bear the fruit of the Spirit by becoming that good and fertile soil that receives and obeys the seed of God's word (Luke 8:11-15). Seeds in themselves don't do much except die so that new life becomes possible (Joh 12:24).
I have capitalized above those aspects of this singular fruit of the Spirit that are specifically in view here. But it is the three that are underlined that I will deal with in this post. For an exposition of LOVE, LONGSUFFERING, and KINDNESS, I refer you to this, which is a reprised consolidation of 16 studies on 1 Corinthians 13:4-8. (You can also access each one separately in reverse order by clicking the "1 Corinthians 13:4-8" LABEL on the right navigation panel).
So then, JOY. Do not mistake joy for happiness. In fact, joy is to happiness as the ocean is to a raindrop. Happiness is transitory, situational and can evaporate in a moment. Happiness is exclusionary. It is impossible to be both happy and something else, which is why it is so fleeting and fragile because the "something else" is likely to enter into the equation at any moment. Biblical joy, in contrast, is the sea upon which we as Christians float from the moment of our conversion and forever thereafter. It is NOT based on circumstances. It is founded upon the Rock of Christ. The word for JOY is found in the New Testament 58 times. It is ALWAYS associated with or referring to Christ.
Here's the list, see for yourself: (Mt 2:10; 13:20,44; 25:21,23; 28:8; Lu 1:14,44; 2:10; 6:23; 8:13; 10:17; 15:7,10; 24:41,52; Joh 3:29; 15:11; 16:20-22,24; 17:13; Ac 2:28; 8:8; 13:52; 15:3; 20:24; Ro 14:17; 15:13,32; 2Co 1:24; 2:3; 7:13; 8:2; Ga 5:22; Php 1:4,25; 2:2; 4:1; Col 1:11; 1Th 1:6; 2:19,20; 3:9; 2Ti 1:4; Phm 7,20; Heb 12:2; 13:17; Jas 1:2; 4:9; 1Pe 1:8; 4:13; 1Jo 1:4; 2Jo 12; 3Jo 4; Jude 24).
Because Christ is our joy, Christians can have joy no matter what else is going on, be it loss, or pain, or sorrow, or even happiness. Christ never leaves us nor forsakes us. And it is no accident that Paul characterizes joy as an aspect of the fruit of the Spirit because it is not something we can WORK up. It is ours through surrender. It is ours through fellowship with the Lord. It is ours through coming to know Jesus more fully each and every day we walk with Him. It is His indescribable gift to us, and we receive it in the same way a beloved child receives the presence of a loving parent, with open arms and full assurance of faith.
PEACE. Here is an extremely comprehensive definition of Biblical peace from Thayer's Greek Lexicon, "the tranquil state of a soul assured of its salvation through Christ, and so fearing nothing from God and content with its earthly lot, of whatsoever sort that is…". This is that "peace that passes all understanding." It is rightly referred to as "the peace of God", Whom Paul fittingly calls "the God of peace" no less that 5 separate times in his epistles. But you cannot know the "peace of God" until you fully understand and accept the GRACE of God. Why? Because unless you believe God's promises that you are His by grace through faith once and forever, you will NEVER have that peace described here. Never. Doubts will ALWAYS arise as to whether YOU have done enough, worked enough, to remain in His good grace. And like joy, we obtain peace in the same way a beloved child receives the presence of a loving parent, with open arms and full assurance of faith.
Finally, I know that there will be some who have taken the time to read this and will wonder, "but doesn't this kind of 'resting in Him', this kind of 'ceasing from works' equate to a 'license to sin'"? Won't it encourage people to presume on the grace of God and just live their lives in disobedience falsely assured that how they live does not have a bearing on where they end up after death? As Paul says, "For if the truth of God has increased through my lie to His glory, why am I also still judged as a sinner? And why not say, “Let us do evil that good may come”?--as we are slanderously reported and as some affirm that we say. Their condemnation is just. (Romans 3:7, 8, NKJV).
Think back again to that picture of a beloved child enfolded in joy and peace within the arms of his or her loving Father. Would it even occur to that child to think, "Alright! Now what can I get away with doing?" Certainly not, if that child fully understood and loved the Father in return. I submit that it would be the LAST thing he or she think about, nestled in that safety, warmth and love, and knowing how cold and lifeless and horrifying existence would be without that relationship that the child did nothing to earn, and could do nothing to lose.
