How can you cultivate the fruit of the Spirit in your life? By allowing the Holy Spirit to take control of your life. Every believing woman of God has already received these special gifts because the Holy Spirit dwells within.
The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and long-suffering. (Galatians.5:22-23)
Before we look at these fruits, which one of them comes easy for you, and which one doesn’t? (It’s ok you can talk aloud to yourself; God is listening.)
Whenever you hear any teaching on cultivating the fruit of the spirit, it is mostly adjusted for youth and children. However, the fruit of the spirit can be used to encourage women of God.
I’m an advocate for loving others like God has commanded and the fruit of the spirit begins with love. Honestly, if you were to seriously think about it, it would be near impossible to display any of the other fruit without having love as the foundation.
Here at Women loving God’s way it’s all about love, the sacrificial type, not the here today and gone tomorrow type. One of the ways that you can begin loving as God has commanded is by cultivating the fruit of the Spirit in your life.
When you look at the Proverbs 31 woman, she had many of the gifts listed here, this is why she was able to leave a spiritual legacy for her son and for all other women to follow. You may not have all of them at 100% capacity but you will be on your way to working with the Holy Spirit to foster their growth.
Why did the Holy Spirit give us these gifts?
These fruits are divine attributes of God that he has shared with you. Matthew tells us that we are the salt and light of the world and this is true. But, how do we stand out, how are we distinctively different?
The God that you serve is immutable that is, he doesn’t change and he also doesn’t lie. God wants you to be his representative here on earth to all those who don’t even realize that they are dying.
Not only do we represent him here on earth but the fruit helps us to become like Christ. Isn’t that our ultimate goal? That’s why we are known as Christians. So, we can become Christlike.
You will agree that as technology advances, we are all more self-centered and focused on our own successes. Although, nothing is wrong with focusing on your goals, is God at the center and how can we be different from everyone else?
As we cultivate the fruit of the spirit, we have begun the process of sanctification. You need to be willing to work with the Holy Spirit so you can grow and mature as a woman of God.
Love
(John.15:12)
If I had to choose the most important fruit it would be the fruit of love simply because of the love the Father has showered on you and me.
Jesus came to earth and took the human frame and died at our hands. His love is unconditional.
Peter admonished us to love deeply. Love as I mentioned earlier should be sacrificial and not conditional.
When Peter said that love covers a multitude of sins, he wasn’t just referencing Jesus’s death covering the sins of the world.
Too many believing women are quick to disclose the mistakes of others. But we can practice what Peter wanted us to understand about love covering sin. Just like Jesus has already forgiven us, so we ought to extend the same grace to our fellow brethren.
If someone confides in you about a sin they struggle with, or that they are holding the animosity in their heart towards another sister or brother…. Once they have repented and forsaken the sin, there is absolutely no need for it to be mentioned to anyone else.
As a matter of fact, the Bible gives us clear instructions to follow if someone refuses to repent from sin once they were confronted. As long as the air is cleared or the individual has moved on, it is water under the bridge.
Love covers all our sins. If the love in your heart is of God, no one will even know that you suspect or knew something about someone else.
Love because Jesus loves you.
Joy
(Psalms.16:11)
When we hear the word joy, we sometimes confuse it with the word happiness. But this fruit of the spirit is not an outward appearance of gaiety. It is not the instant burn of a match but the lasting burn of a campfire with good wood.
Once the fire has been lit in your heart it may dwindle but it can never be put out. There is a very popular phrase that is often used, “don’t let the 4devil steal your joy” but is it accurate?
When someone bullies your child, when you lose your job or the guy is just not that into you, your happiness is gone but the embers of joy are still blazing.
The joy that you have is from God and Him alone and no one can take it from you. This joy produces hope so even when things aren’t going like you thought they would, you can still smile with assurance. Our joy is found in the promises that God has given to us, it is found in our one-way ticket to heaven, and it is found in the down payment (the Holy Spirit) that we have received when we became women of God.
Check out my Book on The Fruit of the Spirit
Peace
(John.16:33)
Peace is very hard to find in this fast-paced world. You may seek it at your job, at home, at church, at the grocery store and what you will realize is that it is a rare commodity.
Every time there is a moment of peace, trouble will always come by and disrupt it but we have peace that is untouchable. No one can ever take it away because God has given it to us.
God never promised that the Christian walk on earth would be easy. Everyone has to face troubles, heartaches, and pains. There is no clear path set aside for those that are HIS. That would be unfair and how would we be able to truly minister and be an example to those that are looking on?
But what God does give to us, is more than enough to help us to keep progressing and moving on. He says that he has already overcome the world. God has the victory and he had already won the battle.
Right now, we are fighting an unseen battle with the corona-virus and the enemy is right there as well but this is no time to lose the peace that Christ has already placed within you. This is the time to hold on to God’s promises.
“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.”
There is no need to fear what man can do in labs or what humans can do without God. Let the peace of God saturate your heart and mind. When the world sees how calm you are and they ask you why you’re not afraid, let them know about God’s peace.
Long-suffering
(Psalms.5:3)
Two other words for this portion are patience and forbearance. Do you like waiting?
I don’t know of any person that actually likes waiting. It’s OK if there is a time limit but when a few hours turn into days, months, or years our patience can turn thin.
Everything moves so swiftly nowadays; however, we still don’t like waiting. God speaks of patience and waiting so many times in his word and that’s simply because it is a requirement for growth.
There is a special blessing that comes with waiting on God. When we pray and ask him for anything, waiting is going to be involved. Sometimes the answer might be sudden but most times you have to exercise patience.
Every answer that he gives is for your benefit and his glory. If you want to buy a house there is a process involved. If you want to marry the man that God has for you there is also a process involved.
When you rush into things you sometimes lose out on miracles that God had waiting for you. Remember how Job was patient while he waited on God to help his situation? It is possible for you to be patient and not grumpy.
Patience means to suffer long. It won’t be easy but it is worth it and it is possible when we allow the Holy Spirit to take control.
Kindness
(Ephesians.4:32)
Sometimes I stumble across blog posts from secular bloggers and top magazine sites that promote kindness. They give such practical tips that are so useful, honest, and actually true but their foundation is not God.
Kindness originated with God. He is kind not just to believers but to everyone. Wherever you are sitting, standing, sharing a bus or car with someone, in a place, wherever the Lord can return right now.
I truly believe that it’s not just his long-suffering but his kindness that has him giving everyone chance after chance to come to him and repent. He also the rain and blessings to fall on us all.
David actually marveled at the fact that those who were wicked actually seemed to be doing much better than those who feared God.
But sometimes, when we look for bad that’s all that we see and we become oblivious to the good that’s right in front of us.
As God is kind to us so we should be kind to others. If you can help someone don’t hesitate. When someone says something mean to you, love, kindness, and forgiveness go hand in hand.
It is very rare that you’d find someone who shows compassion to someone that has spoken bad about them or did something horrible to them. And this is why you can’t do this in your strength. The Holy Spirit is there to prompt you, encourage you, and lead you to offer a kind word or deed when you never thought you would. The goal of cultivating the fruit of the Spirit is to become like Christ.
Goodness
(Galatians.6:10)
A common misconception that we have is that good is basic. English classes teach us about good, better, and best but good is not basic.
Jesus proves to us that God is good, is not basic because only God is good. When Jesus rebuked the young man that called him good, he was giving glory, honor, and praise to the Father by saying that only God is good.
God wanted us to have this attribute that he possesses because this is another way that we can show the world just how good he is.
Hasn’t he been good to you? He has been mighty good to me and I want to reflect his goodness to others.
To be good means to resist all moral evil and follow all moral good. I think I caught your attention, there right? How can I a sinner saved by grace consistently resist evil and do good?
It’s simple sis, it’s not up to you, it is, however, based on you allowing the Holy Spirit to guide you. When someone wants to gossip about Mary’s choice of hair color or want you to help them out by lying, you already know that it is wrong.
The Holy Spirit will be right there, gently nudging you to do what is right and at that moment when you follow his prompting, you are cultivating the fruit of the spirit.
Faithfulness
(2 Timothy.2:13)
God asked a rhetorical question through the author, Luke, when Jesus returns will he find faith on the earth? Faith is very important in your life as a woman of God. Without it, God has said, it would be impossible to please him.
How would you say your faithfulness is to God? If you are faithful in little, you will be faithful with plenty.
We ought also to be women of prayer. If our faith is dwindling then our prayers are just recitation without any power behind them.
When God told Abraham that he wanted him to kill Isaac, his promised/miracle son, Abraham obeyed. He did as God said and was on the verge of killing his son because he had faith in God.
Can God say the same about you? If everything you had were stripped away if you lost your car, home, possessions will you still remain faithful to God?
Ladies, I paused here for a second because I had to truly answer this question for myself and honestly, I can say I don’t know what my reactions would be.
But I’m confident that the nudging of the Holy Spirit will be strong on my life that I would realize that the Lord is my help and I would be faithful.
Maybe unlike me, you know that your flesh may get the upper hand and that’s why I chose this verse on faithfulness. Even if you are unfaithful, God will still be faithful because that’s just who he is.
When you are backed into a corner, the world is watching, they want to see how you will handle your test or trial, they want to see your faithfulness. In your being faithful, God can turn some heart of stone to Him.
Gentleness
(Philippians.4:5)
(Proverbs.15:1)
Every time I think of gentleness, I think of Moses, he was meek and obedient yet he murdered an Egyptian in cold blood. Moses exuded strength under control.
Have you ever experienced bad customer service? Where I live, I have to deal with this every day. Also, due to my job I have to deal with customers with bad attitudes and let me tell you it’s not easy.
I’m really gentle but sometimes certain situations and people would just make you exercise extraordinary gentleness. At times like these, I rely on the Holy Spirit. I would offer a prayer before I give an answer to activate the Holy Spirit’s power within me.
When being gentle your needs are placed at the back and the person that you are talking to is treated with compassion no matter how loud or unreasonable, they get.
Of course, you use your intuition and discretion to know when to exit a situation but when you are calm and gentle the other individual will usually begin to calm down.
I’ve had many instances as a Christian school teacher where I could have given tit for tat but underlying it all is my example as a woman of God. Not just to the person but to my students and fellow co-workers.
When one believer does well, we all do well because all the glory goes to God. A gentle answer turns away wrath so be careful how you respond so because God is watching.
Self-control
(Titus.2:11-12)
Maybe you struggle with self-control and you’re wondering how will the Holy Spirit help me in this area? If you are a woman of God, one who has accepted Jesus Christ as your Savior you wouldn’t want to grieve the Holy Spirit.
He can be reduced to a barely audible whisper but it’s important to allow Him to lead in your life. If there is a war waging know that God already has the victory.
One of your greatest enemies as a woman of God is your flesh. You can lose control of food, immorality, time management, your tongue, and so many other areas.
This is what makes it difficult but it is totally possible once you give the Holy Spirit free reign and listen to what he says.
It all boils down to love, if you love God you would strive to keep his commandments and be obedient.
Self-control stops you from lashing out with anger, it stops you from behaving in a manner that will turn unbelievers away from Christ. It’s sad that so many believers quote (Matthew.7:1) to justify and defend their incorrect habits.
The world is watching. Now is the time to cultivate the fruit of the spirit in your life sis. It will set up on the path toward sanctification.
I wrote a Book on The Fruit of the Spirit: Allowing the Holy Spirit to take control, if you would like to check it out.
After getting through this post you deserve a gift. Here is a free printable all about the fruit of the spirit. Click here and enjoy it.
I love you with the love of Christ. Keneesha 🙂
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