Galatians 5:22-23–"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law."
This passage and its content present the fruits of the Spirit, which are held in contrast to the fruits of the flesh. To be sure, the point here is that those who are in Christ and have submitted to the Holy Spirit's presence in their lives will exhibit certain personality and behavioral traits: the fruits of the Spirit. One of the struggles with this passage as it pertains to Christians is that some who would think themselves worthy of receiving these fruits yet have found them oddly absent in their lives have wrongly assumed that in order to possess them they need to somehow try harder–as if by trying to be more joyful we would receive the spiritual fruit of joy, etc. But this attitude couldn't be further from the truth. Rather, the fruits of the Spirit are simply a direct result of our adoring devotion to God through Jesus. It is this and this alone that incurs the presence of the fruits at all. For this reason, we should not focus too much on the fruits as if by possessing them we would enhance our devotion to the Lord. Instead we should strive to love God with all our hearts, soul, and mind, and trust that God will bless us with spiritual fruits in our lives.
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