Galatians 5:22–23 «“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against which there is no law.”»

The works of the flesh are manifested in the lives of those who remain in the world, even if they belong to one congregation or another. If the works of the flesh continue to manifest consistently in your life, you are not walking in the Spirit.

The fruit of the Spirit is the distinguishing mark of a believer and evidence of adoption into the family of God. When the Spirit of God takes residence in a person’s life, His fruit begins to manifest as evidence of that person’s identity as a son or daughter of God.

The presence of the Spirit in a believer is demonstrated by the life that believer produces.

A child of God must allow the fruit of the Spirit to be fully manifested in his or her life. God does not recognize a standard of 99.9 percent. The evidence must be complete.

You cannot claim to possess joy while lacking the love required by God. Neither can you claim to have temperance while lacking goodness or the meekness required in His kingdom.

If you rely on two or three aspects of the fruit as evidence that you belong to God, you are deceiving yourself. All nine aspects of the fruit of the Spirit must be developed and manifested in your life.

Someone climbing a ladder cannot reach the top by removing two of its steps along the way.

The steps of a ladder must remain complete for you to reach the top. In the same way, the fruit of the Spirit must be complete in your life. The completeness of the fruit is part of what makes you complete in the presence of God.

You cannot confidently claim to be a son of God while the character of the Spirit remains incomplete in you. How can you claim to be complete in Him when the evidence of His Spirit is incomplete in your life?

The Spirit of God is the Spirit who spoke through the prophets. As He works within you and His fruit develops in your life, He also manifests His gifts through you by the operation of His Spirit.

The Spirit of God leads His children according to His written Word. He teaches them to obey the Word of God and follow His commandments without partiality.

The Spirit of God leads His children along the right path, because there is a way that seems right to a person, but its end is destruction.

Therefore, examine the path you are taking. Is it the path of the flesh, which operates contrary to the will of God and leads to destruction? Or is it the path of righteousness that leads to life in God?

You can discern the path you are following by what is written in His Word.

The works of the flesh are manifestations of the demonic spirit operating through human nature. You can recognize the influence of witchcraft by the kind of envy a person displays.

Likewise, demons express themselves through human nature by actively manifesting through the works of the flesh.

The fruit of the Spirit is also the manifestation of the Spirit of God dwelling within human nature.

A spirit that enables you to exercise one aspect of the fruit while preventing you from manifesting the others is not the Spirit of God. A person may appear meek before others and yet refuse to humble himself before the living God.

Much of what people call humility is false humility. It is often pride concealed beneath an outward appearance of submission.

The joy of God is demonstrated when you remain joyful even when circumstances do not unfold according to your plans. The peace of God is manifested during times of turbulence, when there appears to be no visible hope.

You will not know the extent of your spiritual development until circumstances arise that test it.

You will not know the depth of your love until you encounter an unlovable person. You will not know the extent of your longsuffering until you face a situation that tests your patience.

God allows His children to encounter situations that demonstrate their allegiance to His Word. He allowed Job to pass through a terrible situation that tested his faithfulness, and in the midst of his trial, Job declared:

«“Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him.”»

The fruit of the Spirit is not proven when everything is unfolding according to your plans. It is proven when your faith, love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, meekness, and temperance are tested.

The Spirit who leads you will produce His fruit in you. If it’s of God, it will produce the fruit of the Spirit, but if it’s of the devil, it will manifest the works of the flesh.

That is why Jesus Christ is calling everyone to repentance, to change the spirit in control of your life to the Spirit of God, to change your titles from the son of disobedience and a child of Satan, who is being controlled by the flesh, to a child of grace and a son of God who is under the control of His Spirit.

Prayer: Father, give me your Spirit to enable me to produce the fruit of repentance, in Jesus’ name, amen.