June 20

Read: John 15:7-9

What the Spirit produces is… faithfulness (Galatians 5:22, Goodspeed).

The Fruit Of The Spirit Is Faith

Perhaps this modern translation of the text will give a cutting edge to a word grown dull through long use. The fruit of which Paul here speaks is fidelity, or as Goodspeed translates it, faithfulness. It is the grace to keep walking with God when others have quit.

Just to continue faithfully in the Christian life does not seem to be a scintillating virtue but it is what we need to see us through to the end of our journey. In dozens of daily decisions we do not need new light — just grace to be faithful to the truth that we already know. We need courage to do what is right. We need determination to try again when we have failed.

The Christian race is from here to heaven — and we need to keep running as long as we are here. The spectator can quit and go home if this marathon wearies him, but he who wins the race must keep picking up his feet and putting them down until he crosses the finish line.

We who have been sanctified wholly must confess that a hundred times we have been ready to quit. But the indwelling Holy Spirit has given us courage to jog on. Sometimes the running has been sheer dogged endurance; but ever and again He has so filled us with a sense of His presence that we have run and not been weary. In both instances He has given us grace to keep going. Paul too must have known those moments of strength. We join his glad testimony to the Galatians: “What the Spirit produces is… faithfulness.”

A Personal Testimony

I know not how others would testify, but as for me, the grace of keeping on — the Spirit’s encouragement to try yet again — more than any other grace has brought me to this point in my Christian life.