But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.

Galatians 5:22-23

To be a follower of Jesus, a person needs to set aside the old ways of living and thinking, and take up His ways. Of course, this requires a sort of surrender to God that recognizes His supremacy, and not our own. This is not difficult to say, nor is it all that difficult to understand, but it can be quite challenging sometimes to put into practice. Yet, God tells us that when we set aside the old to live according to His Spirit, we will bear fruit. The first of these is love.

True Godly love is the cornerstone of the Christian life, filling us with a caring concern for those around us, and enriching every sort of human relationship and interaction. Following closely on the heels of Godly love is the joy that we will experience when we live in the Spirit, for this is a life without guilt or regret or upheaval resulting in a deep inner peace that we have when we know that we are working and living within God’s plan for our lives.

Forbearance, or patience, becomes a testimony to our trust in God’s plans and timing. Kindness and goodness characterize our relations with others, expressing God’s love to them in a living and practical way. Faithfulness is another testimony to our new life in Christ, as we are seen as keepers of our word in all things.

Gentleness and self-control, so rare in our modern culture, are testimony of the all-sufficiency of our relationship with God, for He provides all that we need, removing so much of the stressfulness of modern life.

It’s occurred to me just now that the fruits of the Spirit are incredibly valuable… maybe even in monetary terms. Suppose I were to offer you a million dollars to forgo the fruits of the Spirit, would you take the money? Think carefully; you might miss out on the fruits of the Spirit, but you could really throw a party for a million bucks! How about 10 or 15 million? Think of the fun you could have… until the money ran out.

The fruit of the Spirit are blessings from God that are eternal― they never run out. We would have to be a special kind of stupid to even consider selling our blessings, don’t you think so?