Lesson 4 Fruit of the Spirit

     Read Galatians 5:22-26 and 1Corinthians 13:4-8 (Amplified).
     These two scriptures relating to love and the fruit of the Spirit show the power of the Holy Spirit within us.  Love, Who is God, wants to live inside us to the extent that He overshadows all of the flesh and the soul to live by His Spirit.
     Love isn't a gift of the Spirit.  Love is the Spirit.  We've been trying to produce love in our lives in the same way we did when we were unsaved.  We gave to charitable organizations and to the poor even when we were in the world.  We tried being nice to people and even felt compassionate towards them.  After we were born again, we continued doing the same things in the same way.
     This love, which is the fruit of the presence of the Spirit of God Who lives within us, isn't the same kind of love we felt before.  Before, we tried being what we knew to be right, but it didn't always work.  This fruit of the presence of the Love of God Who came when we received His Holy Spirit and isn't something we've conjured up in our lives.  He only comes when we surrender our lives.
     1Corinthians 5:26 (Amplified) basically says the same thing that 1Corinthians 13:4-5 (Amplified) says.  We read in Galatians 5:26 (Amplified) that, "Let us not become vainglorious and self-conceited, competitive and challenging and provoking and irritating to one another, envying and being jealous of one another."  These are the traits of the old, natural men we used to be.
     We can never portray the real fruit of the Holy Spirit until we learn to yield to and be led by the Holy Spirit.  We keep doing the works of the flesh and actually believe it's God's will.  Don't misunderstand what I am saying here!  We are supposed to good things and to give to the poor just like the Scriptures tells us, but there's a difference.
     1Corinthians 13:3 (Amplified) says, "Even if I dole out all that I have (to the poor in providing) food, and if I surrender my body to be burned or in order that I may glory, but have not love (God's Love in me) I gain nothing."  So you see, it's not always a matter of what we do, but it's why we do it.  Did we do it to gain glory from men, or to bring glory to God?  Many times we do good things for all the wrong reasons.
     Jesus bore the full fruit of the Holy Spirit in His earthly walk.  It isn't recorded anywhere in the Word where Jesus did any miracles before He received the Holy Spirit.  Every work Jesus did was the fruit of the Spirit.  Surely, He was a good man and He did good things before receiving the Holy Spirit.  But, the Holy Spirit didn't record any of them because they were done in His flesh as natural works.  Only the works He did in the Holy Spirit are recorded in the Word.  All of our works, our own righteousness, weren't recorded.  We've died and now our life is in HIM. 
     There are so many things the Holy Spirit wants to do in our lives, but we hinder Him from doing because we don't surrender to His Love in us.  All of the gifts of the Spirit are found in 1Corinthians 12:31 (Amplified) and Paul sums up the way to obtain and operate in them in one verse, saying, "But earnestly desire and zealously cultivate the greatest and best gifts and graces (the higher gifts and the choicest graces). And yet I will show you a still more excellent way (one that is better by far and the highest of them all---love."
     Paul didn't say that Love was the greatest gift.  He said Love was the greatest and most excellent way to obtain and walk in these gifts and to cultivate or desire them.  He simply said that by walking in love, we become the perfect candidates for receiving these gifts.  I believe that the fruit of the Spirit, is the full manifestation of the gifts in the Spirit in our lives.  No matter what part of the body we may be called to portray, we are a vital importance to the whole of the body.
     We see men behind the pulpit and seem to think of them as being more important to God than we are.  NOT TRUE!  The man behind the pulpit is a gift to the people to teach them how to minister and build up the body (the Church, Christ's body).  Jesus said in John 13:35 (Amplified) that, "By this shall all (men) know that you are My disciples, if you love one another (if you keep on showing love among yourselves)."
      The gifts of the Spirit, the fruit of the Spirit and the Love (Who is the Spirit) are all One and the same thing.  They are the very character and the nature of our Father, Who is Love Himself.  This is a supernatural force of the very presence of God in our born again Spirit.  This is the very  DNA that was passed into our spirits by His Own Blood at our new birth.  The same DNA that was in Jesus Who was born of the Spirit, is the same DNA that was birthed in us at our new birth.
     We have the nature and design of our Father and He Is Love.  1John 4:8 (Amplified) says, "He who does not love has not become acquainted with God (does not and never did know Him) for God Is Love. All of His power, is in His love, and all of His love is in you by the Holy Spirit.  Romans 5:5 (Amplified) says, "Such hope never disappoints or deludes us or shames us, for God's love has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit Who has been given to us."
     We must study about the depths of God's Love for us and begin walking in the security of that Love.  Put aside all the doubt, unbelief and the old guilt conscience form you and begin to walk in the power of God and display the power of His Love for you and me.  This love will heal the sick, set at liberty those who are bound and bring new life to those who are dead.