A Package Deal

Some folks come to Galatians 5:32 like a person standing at the produce stand.  Looking around there are bananas, apples, oranges, grapes, pineapples, and many other fruits that tempt the taste buds.  For the person at the produce stand, it is a pick and choose moment.  One can be chosen and another left on the shelf.  What is often missed in the fruit of the Spirit passage is that it is a package deal.  It is not pick and choose, but everything and more.     

It is easy to jump to the conclusion that it is a pick and choose moment.  We often read the word "fruit" to be "fruits" which leads us down the wrong aisle.  Each of the things listed is not a fruit of the Spirit, but a part of the package which God is ready to gift to to us.  Like one stain glass window with many mosaics, the love or peace being offered is a part and not the whole.  And the parts are not given separate from the whole.    

What the Holy Spirit is seeking to do in us is to transform our heart, the source of our outward expressions, so completely that it bears no resemblance to anything which has ever existed in us.  This is why the Apostle Paul would in another letter refers to the divine inner work by writing, "So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation..."   (II Corinthians 5:17)  Make no mistake.  What the Spirit is about as He beings this work of growing fruit in our life is not a moment of making us better, but instead, a complete overhaul.  What we try to manufacture in us so that we will look good is produced by His work in such a way that is shows itself in a spontaneous manner.