As we look at the various Christian graces mentioned by the apostle Paul (Galatians 5:22-23), we realize we have in them a perfect picture of Christ Himself. The true Christian seeks to be Christ-like. The degree of our Christ-likeness represents the extent of our spiritual maturity. The truly mature Christian displays at least to some degree the nine-fold fruit of the Spirit.

The first fruit to be mentioned is ‘love’. ‘Agape’ denotes love in the essentially spiritual sense – love with no strings attached! When we read, then, that the fruit of the Spirit is love, we must think of love in its pure sense, and not in the sense it is usually used today.

This ‘love’ relates to several different aspects of our lives. Primarily it speaks of love for God. Jesus said, ‘If you love me you will keep my commandments’ (John 14:15). Our love of God, similarly, shows itself in the attitude we adopt towards God’s ways and God’s word. If we love God, we long to know more about him from His Word, and so we read the Bible.

Love for others is a further characteristic in a Christian. We all have friends, people whom we are naturally drawn, with whom we share common interests. Agape means we find ourselves loving and caring for people we normally would have nothing to do with. We can, in fact, love people we don’t like! Such love encompasses love for the unlovely, love for the lost, and even love for our enemies.

But there is also a place for love for oneself. We sometimes overlook what Jesus said in the second great commandment – ‘You shall love your neighbour as(you love) yourself’. He implies we do love ourselves. In his letter to the Ephesians, Paul says, ‘no man ever hates his own flesh, but nourishes it and cherishes it. We should, however, be concerned for the best interests of ourselves as persons. We should look after our physical health as far as we are able. We should not lose self-respect and neglect ourselves. Our concern is to be the best for God. As Christians we believe our bodies to be temples of the Holy Spirit and we must not, therefore, despise them.

Another point to remember is that the love, joy and peace, of which we read in Galatians, are radically different from those natural qualities of love, joy and peace which the man of the world may know something of from time to time, but which do not last.

There is all the difference in the world between deep and abiding joy and superficial will-o’-the-wisp happiness. The joy what Christ gives to his disciples is something that remains. That is why he said, ‘These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full’ (John 15:11).

Throughout the Scriptures we are encouraged to ‘rejoice in the Lord’. The Psalmist calls on the righteous to be ‘glad in the Lord and rejoice’, even to ‘shout for joy’.

On the other hand, Jesus warned His disciples that the path ahead would not be easy for them. They would be hated and ostracized and reproached, and then he added – ‘Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for behold your reward is great in heaven, for so their fathers did to the prophets’ (Luke 6:23).

The Christian message itself, heralded by the angel at the birth of Christ, was described as being, ‘good news of a great joy’.

While joy should be a continuing experience, there are certain experiences in the Christian life which are special sources of joy. First and foremost is the joy of salvation. Every true believer knows something of that joy which floods his soul when God gives him the assurance of sins forgiven.

When the Samaritans received the gospel, there was ‘much joy in that city’ (Acts 8:8). When the Philippian jailor found salvation, his fear gave place to joy. He ‘rejoiced with all his household that he had believed in God’ (Acts 16:34).

While it may be true that with the passing of time we may lose something of that exuberance of joy which we had when we first became Christians, nevertheless a deep and abiding joy should continue within us, for it is ‘joy of the Lord which is our strength’. Then, like David, we sometimes through sin forfeit this joy and we need to pray, ‘Restore to me the joy of thy salvation’ (Psalm 51:12).

There is also the joy of service. The Christian finds his greatest joy in serving his Lord. The most discontented Christians are those who are unemployed. The greatest joy of all is the joy of soul-winning.

In the three parables recorded in Luke chapter 15, Jesus refers to the great joy experienced by those who ‘found that which was lost’. In each of these parables the joy of the finders is infectious. In any church, the greatest possible joy should be to have news of conversion.

The apostle John wrote in a similar vein in his third letter, where he says, ‘No greater joy can I have than this, to hear that my children follow the truth’
(3 John 4).

A Christian minister, a Bible class leader or Sunday School teacher finds tremendous joy in seeing the response of those in his or her care and their continuance in the Christian life.

There is also the joy of fellowship. It is a little foretaste of heaven; indeed, one of the tests that we may apply to ourselves as to whether we are in the faith is how far we enjoy the fellowship of the Lord’s people.

One further source of joy which comes to us as Christians – the joy of anticipation. It is the return of Christ when we shall be reunited with those we love. Above all we look forward to the enjoyment of heaven.

We cannot know the peace of God until we are at peace with God. We read, ‘Therefore since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God’ (Romans 5:1).

But Jesus also wanted peace for his disciples.This is a peace that only disciples can experience. Christ’s is a peace that we should experience even amid the trials and tribulations of life. It is hardly surprising that such peace is described as being ‘beyond all human understanding’ (Philippians 4:7). There is a peace which is quite understandable – when the sun is shining and everything in the garden is lovely, but that is not the peace that the apostle has in mind. This is essentially something which is a fruit of the Spirit. The word Paul uses here is a military word. He regards peace as acting as a kind of garrison or heavenly sentinel, challenging the approach of anything that would worry our minds or disturb our hearts.

There is an attitude of mind and heart which Christians are called on to cultivate. We have to learn to be careful for nothing. The word ‘care’ is used here in the sense of anxiety. We have to learn not to worry about anything (Philippians 4:6). At the same time, we have to be prayerful about everything.

We are told to be thankful for everything. We are ready enough to run to God with our requests when we are in trouble, but we forget to return thanks. Our attitude towards the circumstances of life must be one of trustful acceptance. If that is so, we shall possess a peace that ‘passes all understanding’.

Paul wrote to the Romans, ‘Let love be genuine,’ (Romans 12:9). Peter in his first letter speaks of the need for ‘sincere love of the brethren’ (1 Peter 1:22). We all know how it is possible to put on pretence that we love people, while underneath we are cold and indifferent to their needs. So both joy and peace must be genuine. Possessing Christian joy is not an affectation. It does not consist of saying ‘hallelujah!’ on every conceivable or even inconceivable occasion. It goes far deeper than that. It is a spiritual quality.

Love, joy and peace represent the inward experience of the Christian, but in these next qualities we see how the Christian life should express itself outwardly – towards other people.

Patience is a rare quality in the natural man. There is a saying, ‘Patience is a virtue, possess it if you can, seldom seen in woman, never in a man.’ By nature some are more patient than others ­– but by grace this is a characteristic that God looks for in all His children.

We see ‘patience’ in God’s own character. God is ‘merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness’ (Psalm 86:15). God is never in a hurry!

Christ showed this same quality of patience with His disciples. In contrast, we are so often impatient with people. We need also to be patient with ourselves in regard to our spiritual development. We need to be patient in trying to bring others to Christ.

We need patience in Christian work which so often appears frustrating. We don’t prove our patience – or our lack of it – unless and until our patience is tried, and this may happen through a variety of causes. Some may need patience to put up with a physical disability. Some need patience to put up with trying people. People may easily irritate us, get on our nerves. How often in the heat of the moment Christians have to pray simply, ‘Your patience, Lord.’

Kindness is not softness, but describes a kindly, tender disposition. In the Old Testament one thinks of Boaz as being a fine example of kindness in the way he allowed Ruth to glean in his fields and even commanded the reapers to pull out some corn from the bundles for her (Ruth 2:16).

Goodness is yet another Christian grace. Just as we must not confuse ‘kindness’ with ‘softness’, neither must we think of ‘goodness’ as being ‘goodygoodyness’. That is a loathsome quality and one to be shunned! It was seen in the Pharisee who prayed in the Temple, thanking God that he was not like other men. That kind of thing savors of priggishness and spiritual pride and those qualities are certainly not the fruit of the Spirit.

Barnabas is described as having been ‘a good man’. When a man is so described we think of someone who rises above the petty things of life – a man devoid of double-dealing, of meanness, of lustfulness, of deceit – a good man. We know Barnabas’ secret – he was a good man, he was also ‘full of the Holy Spirit and of faith’ (Acts 11:24).

It was said of Jesus that He ‘went about doing good’ (Acts 10:38). In these days there is a sad tendency to ridicule those who spend their lives ‘doing good’. They are described disparagingly as ‘do-gooders’. However, as Christians we are called on not only to be good, but also to do good. By good works they express in everyday life the fact that they are saved.

Goodness is a very practical quality– it is seen in the story of the Good Samaritan. Doing good is not necessarily spectacular. It may mean doing errands for somebody who is ill, it may mean reading to someone whose sight is failing, it may mean befriending someone who is lonely, it may mean sitting up with someone who is unwell. On the other hand, refusing to listen to unkind criticisms about people, refusing to think the worst, refusing to be suspicious of people – that is also a mark of goodness. The true Christian is always thinking of ways of ‘doing good’. If he has time on his hands he wants to put it to good account. He wants to use the talents given to him to God’s glory and for the good of his fellows. When money comes to him, he is anxious to put it to good use.

Such exquisite qualities only become ours as we surrender ourselves wholly to the control of the indwelling Holy Spirit.

And every virtue we possess

And every victory won

And every thought of holiness

Are his alone

Three further characteristics remain: faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. As to faithfulness, a mature Christian is marked by a quality of dependability and reliability.

Faithfulness will mean loyalty to the local church, to any responsibilities we may have. The same will apply to any other voluntary service. A mature Christian is someone who can be trusted, relied on, since he or she is utterly dependable.

Gentleness, or meekness, has been called the superlative of Christian character – something which is absolutely contrary to our nature. Perhaps the best word to describe this grace is ‘humility’.

Gentleness is greatly stressed in the Bible. Here is something God longs to see in His people – something he prizes most highly. ‘A gentle and quiet spirit … in God’s sight is very precious’ (1 Peter 3:4).

Finally we have self-control; last, but by no means least in importance. ‘He who is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he who rules his spirit than he who takes a city.’ (Proverbs 16:32).

Men – like motor cars – can be very dangerous when ‘out of control’. The fruit of the Spirit is poise – a well-balanced life, avoiding extremes. Self-control apples to such very matter-of-fact things in life as the way we spend our money, the amount of food we eat, and the amount of time we devote to Christian work and meetings, as well as to recreational pursuits.

There are three spheres in particular where self –control is needed. First, in relation to our thought-life. The conquest of temptation is the conquest not of things but of thoughts. We all know people whose tongues run away with them. James said, ‘If any one makes no mistakes in what he says he is a perfect man, able to bridle the whole body’ (James 3:2). Idle gossip and scandal-mongering, wild criticism, hasty judgments, sweeping generalizations, an argumentative spirit, the use of expletives, exaggeration, the frequent use of idle threats and making of empty promises – these are all signs of the lack of self-control.

Temper is another area of life where self-control is called for. Someone has said, ‘Keep your temper, no one else wants it!’ Things are said and done that are later bitterly regretted. A wise man wrote, ‘A man without self-control is like a city broken into and left without walls’ (Proverbs 25:28).

What we are counts for more than what we do. To be a Christian should mean to be like Jesus Christ. When Jesus said to His disciples, ‘follow me’, He meant that they should model their lives on his life. It is a fact that non-Christians expect Christians to be Christ-like. No one becomes Christ-like overnight. It is by the operation of the Holy Spirit that transformation of character takes place.