Belong to Christ and Live by the Fruit of the Spirit

This morning as I was reading and preparing my thoughts, I was impacted and reminded to be positive and uplifting. I read in Galatians to “Walk by the Spirit” and as I was I immediately jumped to all those items that demonstrate walking in the flesh. Paul does a great job of informing the Galatians and us of those things that are of the flesh and the worldly law. So much so that he even infers that the law was and is all about the flesh. I am not going to speak of those things of the flesh this morning, I will simply let you know of the passage (Galatians 5:16-26) and allow you to do your own reading. What I will do is refer to the fruit of the Spirit that is discuss in the same passage.

“²²But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, ²³gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. ¹⁶But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. ¹⁸But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.” — Galatians 5:22-23, 16 & 18 (ESV)

There are so many things that are within the fruit of the Spirit and our relationship with Christ and our belonging to Him will bring those out. I see in the verses above and am reminded that all of those are not referred to in the law. When I am loving, joyful, peaceful, patient, kind, good, faithful, gentle, self-controlled, there is nothing that anyone will say or act out against me. There is not law that says that you are to not be or do those things. There is no one in court waging war against anyone that was to loving.

As this is such the greatest thing to be cared for as we live by the fruit of the Spirit, it makes so much sense to live those traits out every day. I belong to Christ and He is the example of all of these traits and when I strive to be more like Him I am to be the example of Christ as I live, so living by the fruit of the Spirit are in my wheelhouse.

What traits are you living by? Are you trying to defend yourself and the right to live by the flesh? What if you focused all of your actions on your belonging to Christ and living by the fruit of the Spirit instead?