“But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” Gal 5.

When put to the test, when given an opportunity to react or respond in the moment, when put on the spot, the thing that will come out of us will be our true self. We would all love to believe good things about ourselves as knowledgeable saints, but we have learned now that knowledge is not equal to life, as the garden trees prove. We don’t want to know how to react, we want our reactions to be Life, and not ourselves.

Life is only formed through beholding and crucifixion. We must behold our natural human self and receive the cross work of Christ. Then we must behold him who is the Life and request he grow himself in the area lacking his fruit. Then will come the follow up test to see if the work is done: meaning we will get to have another chance to see if we react the same or not.

Christian growth, then, is the steady work of finding my self in stress, submitting myself to Christ for renewal, and passing the test the second time. Then comes praising God, and waiting for the next test. Repeat.

The good news is that there really is only a limited number of bad fruits in the human soul. The 10 commandments help us with a list, and so too the fruit of the Spirit. And the other good news is we don’t have to wait for the lessons, we can request them early, and they are less painful and damaging to our loved ones along the way. See the white lie as a dragon and you’ll slay it before the web of lies are inescapable.

The refinement is not our task, or our ability, but by the grace of God and our humility we can be without blemish or wrinkle by the end.