Filled and Fruitful!

The Holy Spirit confronts our sin to reduce its dominance, and He creates positive developments nudging each Believer towards Christ-likeness. While convicting and cleansing are essential activities of the Spirit of Grace, they are incomplete without Him creating the character of the Lord Jesus within us. Spiritual transformation is not only concerned with those wrong patterns of thought and deed we must discard, but also those good traits and qualities that must be imparted to us as children of God.  Creating Christlike character in Believers is the specialty of the Holy Spirit; He is the key to fruit bearing in our lives.

A RENOVATION PROJECT

Spiritual formation is much like renovating a living room in a home.  There are some items that will be removed. Perhaps an old couch, the end tables, some lamps, and old pictures will be removed and discarded. The project may be as extensive as taking out a wall and the existing flooring.  But the work would be grossly incomplete if new flooring and furnishing were not installed. The wall that was removed gives way to an enlarged room and a more open floor plan. The old flooring tiles can be replaced with hardwood flooring. New furniture items and fresh wall paper would finish out the project nicely. In the renovation process there is both removing the old and installing the new. If there is only taking out without a putting in, the room would be uninhabitable and incomplete.  It would not serve its full purpose.  So it is with the renovation work of the Spirit.  He endeavors to remove sinful habits and install saintly habits.  He must root out godless character and install godly character. Anything less would be incomplete. The Spirit must rid believers of inconsistency, low integrity, hatred, anger, and worldliness.  He would love nothing more than to refurnish our soul with righteousness, all goodness, truth, love, joy, peace, virtue, godliness, brotherly kindness and many other graces typical of Jesus Christ (Eph. 5:9; Gal. 5:22-23; 2 Pet. 1:5-8).

FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT

Regarding the “fruit of the Spirit” (Gal. 5:22), we believers must undergo something of an internal renovation. When the Spirit’s endeavor is well under way, it will display the most brilliant creativity in the entire universe. The Spirit of the Lord actually fashions Christlike outgrowth in each of us as we yield to His authority. This is nothing less than an absolutely astonishing reality for us Believers. In this function, the Spirit produces our new character—Christ’s image (Eph. 4:24; Col. 3:10). This is a wondrous undertaking when one considers how glorious the Lord Jesus truly is and how much unlike Him we are! The Apostle Paul said in Galatians 5:22–23, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith [faithfulness], ²³ Meekness, temperance [self-control]: against such there is no law.” He portrays this creative labor as “the fruit of the Spirit.” The Holy Spirit fashions within Christians this new distinctive character all the while evidencing supernatural life in us.

Supernatural Fruit

First, it is important to observe that this “fruit” is not produced by us believers ourselves, but by the Holy Spirit growing “fruit” within our souls. Fruitfulness is possible through our vital union with Christ (John 15:1-8). Without Him we, the people of God, can do nothing at all to produce personal holiness (Jn. 15:5). We are called upon to abide in Christ because through the Lord Jesus we can become absolutely everything He requires (Phil. 4:13). All the listed virtues, the “fruit of the Spirit” (Gal. 5:22, 23), describe the life of the truly spiritual child of God as we abide in a fruit bearing relationship to Christ. This fruit can only grow out of supernatural life.

Spirit Filling

Secondly, the way to become fruitful is to be filled with the Spirit of God (Eph. 5:18). It has been recognized (Murray 1984, p.7) that Spirit filling is the yielded believer being continually controlled, dominated, and governed by the Holy Spirit for daily living and service. We are not interested in running our own lives for our own agenda. Spirit filling is commanded, conditional, experiential, repeatable, and God’s will for every believer. Many of us good Christians will never know the fullness of God’s Spirit because we are so caught up in doing many good things and are involved in several worthy causes. We are so busy leading our own lives that there is no room for God to lead us. We have failed to realize that we are often filled with ourselves rather than the Holy Spirit.  Therefore, our actions are the expression of our own will, desires, values, and motives and not God’s plans at all. Consequently, our strength and power is merely human. We desperately need to rediscover the crucified life (Gal. 2:20) and the Spirit’s crucial empowerment.

Being filled with the Spirit is being controlled by the God (Eph. 5:18). God’s positive command is, “Be filled with the Spirit.” The verb “filled” has nothing to do with contents or quantity, as though believers are empty containers needing a required amount of spiritual fuel to keep going. In the Bible, filled means “controlled by.” “They... were filled with wrath” (Luke 4:28) means “they were controlled by wrath” and for that reason tried to kill the Lord Jesus. “The Jews were filled with envy” (Acts 13:45) means that the Jews were controlled by envy and opposed the ministry of Paul and Barnabas. To be “filled with the Spirit” means to be constantly controlled by the Spirit in one’s mind, emotions, and will.

And it should also be noted that the verb “filled” is passive. We Christians do not fill ourselves but we permit the Spirit to control us. Thus as Believers, rather than controlling ourselves, we are controlled by the Holy Spirit. It may be more accurate to say that the Holy Spirit is the “Agent” of the filling (Gal. 5:16) and Christ is the “Content” of this supernatural filling (Eph. 3:16-19). Thus in this relationship, as we are yielded to the Lord and controlled by Him, He increasingly manifests the fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22-23), which is the very character of Christ. Yes, this is how believers can evidence this spiritual fruit.

Being filled is to be repeated and continuous. It is not a once-for-all crisis experience in the life of a disciple; ‘filling’ is not an once-in-a-lifetime moment of spiritual exhilaration from which one will never have carnal moments again. Rather it is a continuous appropriation where the Christian regularly prays (Murray 1984, p. 9) “Fill me for this day, this decision, this meeting, this activity, this encounter, or this chore.” Then we depend upon God to control our thoughts, emotions, and actions. God desires for us to ‘keep on being continually filled with the Spirit.’ It may begin as a crisis experience, but it must continue thereafter as a moment-by-moment dependence upon the Spirit for fresh power/grace (MacDonald & Farstad). Today’s filling will not suffice for tomorrow. And certainly it is a spiritual blessing every believer should greatly desire. In fact, it is the ideal condition for us Believer here on earth. It means that the Holy Spirit is having His way fairly unhindered in our experience. As such believers, we are therefore fulfilling our role in the plan of God for that time (MacDonald & Farstad).

Just as wine can control a person, God desires to control the believer’s life by His Spirit. Such believers are not afraid to express themselves to the glory of God. We will experience the beautiful manifestation of the fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22-23).

A Singular Fruit

Thirdly, the word “fruit” is singular. This indicates these nine qualities constitute a unit, all of which should be found in us believers as we live under the control of the Spirit (Eph. 5:18).  These qualities will not all be manifested to the same degree or strength, but will still be evident in each believer’s character.  The more we mature in our reliance on the Spirit, the more pervasive Christ’s image will become in our character. As Christians we must consciously depend on the Spirit to produce fruit in and through us.

Christ’s Life

Fourthly, in an ultimate sense this “fruit” is plainly the life of Christ lived out in a submissive Christian. Character influences what we do—behavior. Character can generally be described as the peculiar and distinctive qualities of a person. The original and simple meaning of the word “character” is an engraving—something carved or inscribed in a person’s nature. It is the potential fact about the individual: “the inmost truth of them written upon their personality” according to Practical Bible Illustrations from Yesterday and Today (Steele, Jr. and Stoner, 1998). Thus life is an expression of one’s character.  Remember, the Holy Spirit endeavors to transform us into the image of Christ. Our Lord’s thoughts, desires, motives, ambitions, values, and qualities become a part of each Christian’s inner man greatly exerting influence upon our behavior. 

It has been wisely pointed out that every one of these qualities is foreign to the soil of the human heart. The method whereby Christ is formed in a believer is the handy work of the Spirit (2 Cor. 3:18; Phil. 1:21). Max Anders (1995, Chapter 11) observed that the first three of these virtues of the Spirit are habits of mind which find their source in God. The second triad reaches out to others, fortified by love, joy, and peace. The final three graces guide the general conduct of us believers as we are led by the Spirit.

It was Dr. Tim LaHaye (1966, p. 45) who pointed out how this process works itself out in his book Spirit Controlled Temperament. He affords a rather comprehensive overview of a Spirit controlled and fruitful life. LaHaye observed, “Needless to say, any individual manifesting these characteristics is going to be a happy, well-adjusted, mature and a very fruitful human being.” These nine qualities reveal God’s desire for His children.  There is a healthy desire in every one of us believers to please our Lord by living a truly spiritual life.  Again spiritual fruitfulness is not the outcome of human effort (LaHaye 1966, 46), but the supernatural production of the Holy Spirit controlling all facets of our experience.  It would be helpful at this juncture to explore these traits individually as Paul presented them in Galatians chapter five.  Believers’ new disposition in the Spirit is marked by these nine qualities (Gal. 5:22-23). Allow Him to carve out the character of our wonderful Lord Jesus in your life daily.