For the past couple of weeks I have been slowly working my way through a new book by Christopher Wright entitled Cultivating the Fruit of the Spirit. I’m not necessarily recommending it, but reading it has challenged me once again to give some thought to just how the fruit of the Spirit is produced in our lives.

To refresh your memory if needed, the Apostle Paul talks about the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5:22 and 23. He contrasts the nine qualities of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control with an undesirable list of “the acts of the flesh.”

While reading Wright’s book I watched a short video online by a pastor who suggested that telling believers the fruit of the Spirit is “character traits we should try to work on” is wrong. He emphasized “the fruit of the Spirit are [sic] the result of walking by the Spirit.”

In his introduction about the fruit of the Sprit, Wright declares “these are the qualities that God himself will produce in a person’s everyday, ordinary human life because the life of God himself is at work within them.” Later in the book, however, when discussing patience, Wright asserts “It is fruit, but at the same time we need to work at it. There is effort and struggle involved.” Those two statements seemed almost contradictory to me.

I then went to a commentary on Galatians by one of my favorite writers, John Stott, and read his observation that the fruit of the Spirit is “the natural produce that appears in the lives of Spirit-led Christians.” I then checked another commentator I like, and writing about love as fruit of the Spirit he noted it requires “deliberate effort” to never seek anything but the best for someone. These two statements also seemed somewhat contradictory.

How is the fruit of the Spirit produced in a believer’s life? Is it automatic? Does the Holy Spirit just make it happen? Or do we have a part to play? Do we have to put forth effort and work at it? We don’t completely understand how the Spirit produces His fruit in us, but it seems obvious we have a part to play.

I think the reality is, that in order to produce this “cluster of nine Christian graces” in our lives, we must cooperate with the Holy Spirit whom the Lord has given to live in us. Citing two phrases from the larger context of Galatians 5:16-26, Stott clarifies: “there is clearly a distinction between ‘being led by the Spirit’ and ‘walking by the Spirit’, for the former expression is passive and the latter is active. It is the Spirit who does the leading, but we who do the walking.”

We have a part in producing the fruit and the Holy Spirit has a part. The Spirit will not do it without our cooperation and we cannot do it without His help. I’d like to see more of this fruit produced in my life. How about you?

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