The Bible Discussion Group

17. The Fruit and the Gifts

The Fruit of the Spirit comes with the salvation experience. This is something that can be expected in the life of every believer. Jesus commanded His disciples to "go and bear fruit". Jesus compares Himself with the vine, believers with branches on the vine and the Father with the gardener. Apart from Jesus we cannot produce fruit. By remaining in Jesus, and keeping His Words in our hearts, we can produce much fruit. This glorifies the Father. We show ourselves to be disciples of Jesus when we bear fruit. (Jn.15: 1-8; 16)

There are 9 fruit of the Spirit mention by the Apostle Paul in Gal. 5:22-23. We can put them into 3 groups:

1) Three spiritual fruit: love, joy and peace. Love is the central fruit. It is evidence of a Spirit-filled life. The Spirit-filled life is described in 1 Cor. 13, "the love chapter." Joy is happiness that doesn't depend on the circumstances of life. As you fellowship deeply and intimately with the Lord, it bubbles up inside you. Peace is a result of reconciliation with God, through the atonement of Christ's death. We have peace with God (Rom. 5:1), with other believers (Eph. 4:3) and with all men (Heb.12: 14).

2) Three social fruit: patience, kindness, and goodness. Patience is calm endurance in the face of trials or putting up with other people. (1 Thess. 5:14) Kindness is friendly, warmhearted, tolerant treatment of others. (Eph. 4:23) Goodness is positive, desirable and attractive qualities in dealing with others. (Eph. 5:9) It is expressed in undeserved generosity.

3) Three personal fruit: faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Faithfulness is a steady, reliable, loyal character, even to the point of dying for Christ. (Rev. 2:10) Gentleness is tenderness and sensitivity, the opposite of anger and harshness. (1 Thess. 2:7) Self-control is the ability to control your emotions, desires or actions. (Titus 2:2)

To have the Fruit of the Spirit, Christians need to maintain a daily living contact with the Lord. Only His Spirit in us can produce that powerful Fruit of the Spirit. The Lord promised that He will supply everything we need for fruit bearing - it's His part. Our part is to yield to the cleansing work of the Holy Spirit inside us. We need to listen to His voice and obey His Word. God's Word is the tool to prune, or cut off, the unproductive branches from us. Through pruning our Father makes sure that our lives will be useful, victorious and bear much fruit.

The leader of the group needs to bear the Fruit of the Spirit and to serve the body of Christ. The quality of your leadership can be measured by how much fruit you have as a result of your relationship with the Lord and service to the members of the group.

Gifts of the Spirit teach the believers about the baptism of the Holy Spirit. They are supernatural abilities given by Jesus to the church, the Bride . Our salvation does not depend on us manifesting the Gifts of the Spirit. Every believer should be given the opportunity to receive the Baptism.

Jesus promised all His disciples that they would be "clothed with power from on high" and only then become His witnesses (Luke 24:49, Acts 1:8). Baptism of the Holy Spirit is a necessary experience for those who want to serve others and to have the supernatural power of God in his/her own life.

There are 9 Gifts of the Spirit. The Apostle Paul describes their operation in 1 Cor. chapters 12 and 14.

The fruit and the gifts are for serving the Lord and others.

1. What are the Gifts of the Spirit? (1 Cor. 12:7-11)

2. What should you do about the operation of the gifts in your group? (1Cor. 14:39-40; 1Thess. 5:19-20)

Chapters:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22