We made it to the end of our “Living the Fruit of the Spirit” series! We hope you have learned as much as us and we want to end the series with some of our own takeaways…

Like all of the other characteristics of a fruitful Spirit, self-control is as much about our relationship with others as it is ourselves. But do not confuse self-control with self-driven. God is still in charge here! Our self-control should be driven not by our own wants, but by the fruit of the Spirit. Self-control is what helps us choose to respond with the characteristics of a fruitful Spirit (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, and gentleness) in difficult moments when we would rather respond with hate, anger, impatience, or rudeness.

We can get our point across and effectively communicate without being harsh or damaging. We can be both soft and confident; tender and strong. Having gentleness means that you also have to have humility.

We impatiently seek Earthly pleasures in an attempt to ease our pain or discomfort, yet we should be waiting for something more.

In everyday life, we often use the word good as a rating for something, like a movie or restaurant, that is better than okay, but not quite great. When someone asks us how we are doing, we almost always default to “I’m good, how are you?”. But as a fruit of the spirit, goodness is so much more than a rating or feeling. It is an indicator of how close we are to God and how obedient we are to His will, rather than our own.

Kill them with kindness. Do unto others what you would want done to you. These are common sayings, but they sound counterintuitive. Why is it so hard to be kind to people that think differently, act differently, or look differently?

Instead of pursuing maximum productivity at all times, we should cultivate an attitude of patience and presence.

We have countless phrases in the English language that revolve around peace: inner peace, world peace, Peace on Earth, peace of mind, come in peace, peace and quiet, peace offering, peace out, make peace, keep the peace. Despite our fascination, why does it feel like there is so little of it?

What does it mean to have the joy of the LORD? It may seem like a simple question, but as we looked into this, we noticed joy is defined several ways in the Bible: joy is strength (Nehemiah 8:10), joy is hope (Romans 15:13), joy is rejoicing (Psalms 5:11), and joy is inexpressible (1 Peter 1:8). With the various ways to define joy, how can we make sure to not confuse happiness with joy?

Did you know that love is mentioned in the Bible 714 times? Did you know that we can express love because GOD first loved us (1 John 4:19)? Did you also know that love is the first fruit of the spirit that is mentioned in Galatians 5:22-23? So why is love the first fruit?