The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control

Background
When Jesus came, he introduced the New Covenant which brought three major differences in the life of God’s people.

• Holy Spirit indwelling of individuals
• Justification by grace, not works
• Elevation of “loving others” to peer of “loving God”

In case you are thinking there was a fourth major difference that being the New Testament, remember that didn’t happen for a couple hundred more years.

Imagine having “religion” instead of a “relationship” with God.  That is what it was like for everyone before Jesus came.  The prophets had a special connection with God, but everyone else was practicing religion.  Religion does not foster the fruits of the Spirit.  That was clearly shown by 1,500 years under The Law.

What it meant to the original audience
When Jesus came, He showed that a heart attitude of love was the goal, not justification through religious obedience.  It was a completely different motivation and it appealed to our true design that gets the most joy and purpose out of serving rather than being served.  Having a history of “obligation”, their heart was opened to truly loving others.  The evidence was so profound that the early Church grew very quickly throughout the Roman Empire.

For us today
Today, we should ask ourselves if others would describe us as having the fruits of the Spirit.  Either way, we should be constantly probing ourselves for areas of focus on “self”.  The best way to do that to be spending daily time in the Word and asking the Spirit to surface areas where we need to grow and to serve.

Daily time in the Word is the most common way the Spirit surfaces focus on “self” rather than heart attitudes that foster the fruits of the Spirit.