The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control… Galatians 5:22-23
“Paul’s “fruit” is singular…The Spirit creates unity characterized by love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Paul would insist that the greatest of these is love, and so all of these other fruits are love’s various facets and expressions, or what God produces in human lives and how God’s Spirit equips us to live in the world.
I love this text because it pushes spirituality out of the narrow confines of personal practices and qualities into the Spirit’s realm of community building. God gives the growth, Paul would say, and so this text also reminds us that the spiritual life is not our achievement, nor matter how perfect our practices.
Like the bread and the fruit of the vine, the fruit of the Spirit is the gift of God for the people of God. Like the bread and the fruit of the vine, the fruit of the Spirit is a sign of the real presence and power of Christ.”
Deborah A. Block, in “Table Grace” in A Spiritual Life: Perspectives from Poets, Prophets, and Preachers, edited by Allan Hugh Cole Jr. (Louisville: WJKP, 2011) 217.
Generosity is the result of God’s work in our lives. It’s a reflection of God’s love through us. If we think our lives are not characterized by generosity, rather than resolving to go do good works, we must submit to the work of the Christ of Christmas in our lives so that His love is made known through us to the world.