How to Bear Fruit in Your Walk with God
This week we have a guest post from James Fields. I thought this was a very helpful article and incredibly timely as we wrap up our series on the Fruit of the Spirit.
One thing that’s struck me for the first time in the last few years about the Fruits of the Spirit is how Paul interweaves it in his writing. Paul wrote Galatians around 38 ad. nearly 24 years later he wrote Colossians. In Galatians, we get the full list of the Fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23), but in his later writings, he just references back to it without listing it out. This seems to indicate that the Fruit of the Spirit wasn’t just a one-time reference in Galatians, but something he also preached about in person. He assumed that they would remember what it was and perhaps that they had refreshed their memory by reading copies of the letter he sent to Galatians over two decades prior.
In Galatians we learn that we ought to live by the Spirit and that a life lived in the Spirit will be marked by the Fruit of the Spirit. In Colossians, we learn, I think, more clearly how to actually do that. The process is outlined in his prayer in Colossians 1:9-10 and contains 5 steps:
"For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God"
Step 1: Grow in Spiritual Knowledge
The first thing Paul says he’s praying for is that they would be filled in all knowledge and wisdom from the Spirit. In order to walk the Christian life, you need to know something about what the Christian life should look like. You need to ground yourself in the Word, meditate on it pulling from it all wisdom and knowledge so that you can know what you ought to do when confronted with all kinds of situations in life.
Step 2: Walk Worthy of the Lord
Now that you’ve spent time in the Word, saturating yourself in the morals God wants you to live by, the next step is to do something with that knowledge. It’s not enough to know the Word! You must change your interactions with this world based on what you’ve learned.
This step, for me, has historically been the hardest. When I was younger I loved studying apologetics so that I could win any argument against my non-Christian friends. Do you hear how ungodly that sounds? The Christian life isn’t about winning arguments and culture wars, it’s about living obediently, striving to become someone who looks like Jesus: humble, just, kind. It’s about learning to live differently - because we are aliens in this world. We don’t belong here. We were made for a different place.
It took many years for me to learn that I shouldn’t use my knowledge as a club to hit my perceived opponent on the head. Instead, I should use my knowledge to love them, serve them, and be Christ to them until they can’t help but want to learn more about our Great God.
Step 3: Please God
Changing just to appear more moral or righteous is not the goal.
Think about it like this: is it right to serve in a food bank and give of your time and energy to those in need? Yes! But is it always right? Is it possible to serve in a food bank in a way that does not honor God? The politician who goes there just for the photo op has the heart motive of financial gain, popularity, and appearing righteous before the voters. The politician who broadcasts their good works has not actually done good works, because their motive was selfish and their aim was not to please God.
Anyone can appear moral, anyone can do good things. But your heart motive as a Christian differs from the world - your aim is not to uplift yourself, but to point all eyes on the only one worthy of honor.
Step 4: Bear Fruit
If you’ve done the first three steps, you will begin to bear fruit. What kind of fruit? The passage doesn’t say, but as I said before it seems to draw on Paul’s previous teaching, the Fruit of the Spirit. You will begin to be more loving, more joyful, more peaceful, more patient, more kind, more good, more faithful, more gentle, and more self-controlled.
Maybe in studying anger in the Bible, you’ve learned a few ways you can walk worthy by taking time to pray, walking away, or resolving conflict quickly. And as you put that into practice you find that you have just a couple more seconds of peace or patience or joy than you had before. That’s the process! You’re seeing the fruit. And seeing that fruit firsthand will naturally lead you to the final step…
Step 5: Grow in Spiritual Knowledge
Hey! Wait a second… isn’t that step one? Yes it is! And Paul included it as two separate steps in Colossians 1:9-10. As you work through this process of growing in knowledge, putting it into action, aiming to please God, and bearing fruit you’re natural desire should be to press on. You’ll be able to say to yourself: "I’ve grown a little in the Fruit of the Spirit, I can’t wait to see what more I can learn!"
I would like to join Paul in praying for you that you would grow in your knowledge so that you would learn to walk worthy, pleasing God, bearing fruit, and growing in knowledge. As you do, you’ll begin to look more and more like the person God wants you to be.
Till He Returns,
James Fields
Biblical Counselor
