by Richard Reid
I have been reading Galatians 5:22 in the Bible. It talks about the fruit of the spirit.
Do you know how many fruits of the spirit there are?
I always thought there were nine, but I was surprised to find out that there is only one. In the Bible, Paul talks about the fruit of the spirit, not fruits of the spirit, singular, not plural.
But it is a very special fruit; it is special because it has nine flavors.
The nine flavors are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
I also found out that there are three categories for these flavors; each category containing three flavors.
The first category represents our relationship with God: Love, joy and peace.
The second category represents how we should relate to other people: patience, kindness, and goodness.
The third category represents our own internal relationship: faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
How is this important? It starts off with “God is Love”. That is the very first flavor of this special fruit. Then God gives us joy and when we rely on God, he gives us peace.
When we deal with other people, we should be patient and treat them with kindness and goodness.
When we look at ourselves, we should be faithful which is another way of saying that we should be trustworthy. We should also be gentle and show self-control by not getting angry with ourselves. This is especially important when we make mistakes. Sometimes we get mad at ourselves, and the Bible is telling us to be gentle and control our emotions when that happens.
Galatians 5:22 shows clearly that God loves us and that gives me joy and peace!
