fruits of the spirit

• believers show; religious experience unfailingly yields

5:2.4It is be­cause of this God frag­ment that in­dwells you that you can hope, as you pro­gress in har­mo­niz­ing with the Ad­juster’s spir­i­tual lead­ings, more fully to dis­cern the pres­ence and trans­form­ing power of those other spir­i­tual in­flu­ences that sur­round you and im­pinge upon you but do not func­tion as an in­te­gral part of you. The fact that you are not in­tel­lec­tu­ally con­scious of close and in­ti­mate con­tact with the in­dwelling Ad­juster does not in the least dis­prove such an ex­alted ex­pe­ri­ence. The proof of fra­ter­nity with the di­vine Ad­juster con­sists wholly in the na­ture and ex­tent of the fruits of the spirit which are yielded in the life ex­pe­ri­ence of the in­di­vid­ual be­liever. “By their fruits you shall know them.”

• believers show; religious experience unfailingly yields

5:2.6The en­tire ex­pe­ri­ence of Ad­juster com­mu­nion is one in­volv­ing moral sta­tus, men­tal mo­ti­va­tion, and spir­i­tual ex­pe­ri­ence. The self-re­al­iza­tion of such an achieve­ment is mainly, though not ex­clu­sively, lim­ited to the realms of soul con­scious­ness, but the proofs are forth­com­ing and abun­dant in the man­i­fes­ta­tion of the fruits of the spirit in the lives of all such in­ner-spirit con­tac­tors.

• God’s will discernible as fruits of spirit in the spirit-led

12:7.7The will of God does not uni­formly pre­vail in the heart of the God-seek­ing ma­te­rial mor­tal, but if the time frame is en­larged be­yond the mo­ment to em­brace the whole of the first life, then does God’s will be­come in­creas­ingly dis­cern­i­ble in the spirit fruits which are borne in the lives of the spirit-led chil­dren of God. And then, if hu­man life is fur­ther en­larged to in­clude the mor­ontia ex­pe­ri­ence, the di­vine will is ob­served to shine brighter and brighter in the spir­i­tu­al­iz­ing acts of those crea­tures of time who have be­gun to taste the di­vine de­lights of ex­pe­ri­enc­ing the re­la­tion­ship of the per­son­al­ity of man with the per­son­al­ity of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther.

• defined as › life reactions of spirit-led mortal
• enumerated › love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance

34:6.13The con­scious­ness of the spirit dom­i­na­tion of a hu­man life is pres­ently at­tended by an in­creas­ing ex­hi­bi­tion of the char­ac­ter­is­tics of the Spirit in the life re­ac­tions of such a spirit-led mor­tal, “for the fruits of the spirit are love, joy, peace, long-suf­fer­ing, gen­tle­ness, good­ness, faith, meek­ness, and tem­per­ance.” Such spirit-guided and di­vinely il­lu­mi­nated mor­tals, while they yet tread the lowly paths of toil and in hu­man faith­ful­ness per­form the du­ties of their earthly as­sign­ments, have al­ready be­gun to dis­cern the lights of eter­nal life as they glim­mer on the far­away shores of an­other world; al­ready have they be­gun to com­pre­hend the re­al­ity of that in­spir­ing and com­fort­ing truth, “The king­dom of God is not meat and drink but righ­teous­ness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.” And through­out ev­ery trial and in the pres­ence of ev­ery hard­ship, spirit-born souls are sus­tained by that hope which tran­scends all fear be­cause the love of God is shed abroad in all hearts by the pres­ence of the di­vine Spirit.

• enumerated › intellectual peace, social progress, moral satisfaction, spiritual joy, and cosmic wisdom

56:10.20To fi­nite man truth, beauty, and good­ness em­brace the full rev­e­la­tion of di­vin­ity re­al­ity. As this love-com­pre­hen­sion of De­ity finds spir­i­tual ex­pres­sion in the lives of God-know­ing mor­tals, there are yielded the fruits of di­vin­ity: in­tel­lec­tual peace, so­cial prog­ress, moral sat­is­fac­tion, spir­i­tual joy, and cos­mic wis­dom. The ad­vanced mor­tals on a world in the sev­enth stage of light and life have learned that love is the great­est thing in the uni­verse—and they know that God is love.

• believers show; religious experience unfailingly yields

99:5.6Any re­li­gious be­lief which is ef­fec­tive in spir­i­tu­al­iz­ing the be­liever is cer­tain to have pow­er­ful reper­cus­sions in the so­cial life of such a re­li­gion­ist. Re­li­gious ex­pe­ri­ence un­fail­ingly yields the “fruits of the spirit” in the daily life of the spirit-led mor­tal.

• defined as › yielding to fellows what one has received

100:2.1Spir­i­tual de­vel­op­ment de­pends, first, on the main­te­nance of a liv­ing spir­i­tual con­nec­tion with true spir­i­tual forces and, sec­ond, on the con­tin­u­ous bear­ing of spir­i­tual fruit: yield­ing the min­istry to one’s fel­lows of that which has been re­ceived from one’s spir­i­tual bene­fac­tors. Spir­i­tual prog­ress is pred­i­cated on in­tel­lec­tual rec­og­ni­tion of spir­i­tual pov­erty cou­pled with the self-con­scious­ness of per­fec­tion-hunger, the de­sire to know God and be like him, the whole­hearted pur­pose to do the will of the Fa­ther in heaven.

• convincing evidence of spiritual certainty consists in

102:6.7Be­lief may not be able to re­sist doubt and with­stand fear, but faith is al­ways tri­umphant over doubt­ing, for faith is both pos­i­tive and liv­ing. The pos­i­tive al­ways has the ad­van­tage over the neg­a­tive, truth over er­ror, ex­pe­ri­ence over the­ory, spir­i­tual re­al­i­ties over the iso­lated facts of time and space. The con­vinc­ing ev­i­dence of this spir­i­tual cer­tainty con­sists in the so­cial fruits of the spirit which such be­liev­ers, faithers, yield as a re­sult of this gen­uine spir­i­tual ex­pe­ri­ence. Said Je­sus: “If you love your fel­lows as I have loved you, then shall all men know that you are my dis­ci­ples.”

• defined as › substance of the Supreme

117:6.17De­spite the fact that you can­not, in this uni­verse age, per­son­ally find him as you can and will find the Fa­ther, the Son, and the Spirit, nev­er­the­less, the Par­a­dise as­cent and sub­se­quent uni­verse ca­reer will grad­u­ally cre­ate in your con­scious­ness the rec­og­ni­tion of the uni­verse pres­ence and the cos­mic ac­tion of the God of all ex­pe­ri­ence. The fruits of the spirit are the sub­stance of the Su­preme as he is re­al­iz­able in hu­man ex­pe­ri­ence.

• must be brought forth to continue ascension

140:1.4“But for you, my chil­dren, and for all oth­ers who would fol­low you into this king­dom, there is set a se­vere test. Faith alone will pass you through its por­tals, but you must bring forth the fruits of my Fa­ther’s spirit if you would con­tinue to as­cend in the pro­gres­sive life of the di­vine fel­low­ship. Ver­ily, ver­ily, I say to you, not ev­ery one who says, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall en­ter the king­dom of heaven; but rather he who does the will of my Fa­ther who is in heaven.

• defined as › enjoyable and ennobling self-control

143:2.8“If, then, my chil­dren, you are born of the spirit, you are for­ever de­liv­ered from the self-con­scious bond­age of a life of self-de­nial and watch­care over the de­sires of the flesh, and you are trans­lated into the joy­ous king­dom of the spirit, whence you spon­ta­neously show forth the fruits of the spirit in your daily lives; and the fruits of the spirit are the essence of the high­est type of en­joy­able and en­nobling self-con­trol, even the heights of ter­res­trial mor­tal at­tain­ment—true self-mas­tery.”

• believers show; religious experience unfailingly yields

155:6.151. The fruits of the spirit of God show­ing forth in your daily rou­tine life.

• Father requires we bear

180:2.1Then Je­sus stood up again and con­tin­ued teach­ing his apos­tles: “I am the true vine, and my Fa­ther is the hus­band­man. I am the vine, and you are the branches. And the Fa­ther re­quires of me only that you shall bear much fruit. The vine is pruned only to in­crease the fruit­ful­ness of its branches. Ev­ery branch com­ing out of me which bears no fruit, the Fa­ther will take away. Ev­ery branch which bears fruit, the Fa­ther will cleanse that it may bear more fruit. Al­ready are you clean through the word I have spo­ken, but you must con­tinue to be clean. You must abide in me, and I in you; the branch will die if it is sep­a­rated from the vine. As the branch can­not bear fruit ex­cept it abides in the vine, so nei­ther can you yield the fruits of lov­ing ser­vice ex­cept you abide in me. Re­mem­ber: I am the real vine, and you are the liv­ing branches. He who lives in me, and I in him, will bear much fruit of the spirit and ex­pe­ri­ence the su­preme joy of yield­ing this spir­i­tual har­vest. If you will main­tain this liv­ing spir­i­tual con­nec­tion with me, you will bear abun­dant fruit. If you abide in me and my words live in you, you will be able to com­mune freely with me, and then can my liv­ing spirit so in­fuse you that you may ask what­so­ever my spirit wills and do all this with the as­sur­ance that the Fa­ther will grant us our pe­ti­tion. Herein is the Fa­ther glo­ri­fied: that the vine has many liv­ing branches, and that ev­ery branch bears much fruit. And when the world sees these fruit-bear­ing branches—my friends who love one an­other, even as I have loved them—all men will know that you are truly my dis­ci­ples.

• enumerated › service, devotion, loyalty, fairness, honesty, hope, trust, ministry, goodness, tolerance, peace
• Father requires we bear

193:2.2“Peace be upon you. You re­joice to know that the Son of Man has risen from the dead be­cause you thereby know that you and your breth­ren shall also sur­vive mor­tal death. But such sur­vival is de­pen­dent on your hav­ing been pre­vi­ously born of the spirit of truth-seek­ing and God-find­ing. The bread of life and the wa­ter thereof are given only to those who hunger for truth and thirst for righ­teous­ness—for God. The fact that the dead rise is not the gospel of the king­dom. These great truths and these uni­verse facts are all re­lated to this gospel in that they are a part of the re­sult of be­liev­ing the good news and are em­braced in the sub­se­quent ex­pe­ri­ence of those who, by faith, be­come, in deed and in truth, the ev­er­last­ing sons of the eter­nal God. My Fa­ther sent me into the world to pro­claim this sal­va­tion of son­ship to all men. And so send I you abroad to preach this sal­va­tion of son­ship. Sal­va­tion is the free gift of God, but those who are born of the spirit will im­me­di­ately be­gin to show forth the fruits of the spirit in lov­ing ser­vice to their fel­low crea­tures. And the fruits of the di­vine spirit which are yielded in the lives of spirit-born and God-know­ing mor­tals are: lov­ing ser­vice, un­selfish de­vo­tion, coura­geous loy­alty, sin­cere fair­ness, en­light­ened hon­esty, undy­ing hope, con­fid­ing trust, mer­ci­ful min­istry, un­fail­ing good­ness, for­giv­ing tol­er­ance, and en­dur­ing peace. If pro­fessed be­liev­ers bear not these fruits of the di­vine spirit in their lives, they are dead; the Spirit of Truth is not in them; they are use­less branches on the liv­ing vine, and they soon will be taken away. My Fa­ther re­quires of the chil­dren of faith that they bear much spirit fruit. If, there­fore, you are not fruit­ful, he will dig about your roots and cut away your un­fruit­ful branches. In­creas­ingly, must you yield the fruits of the spirit as you pro­gress heav­en­ward in the king­dom of God. You may en­ter the king­dom as a child, but the Fa­ther re­quires that you grow up, by grace, to the full stature of spir­i­tual adult­hood. And when you go abroad to tell all na­tions the good news of this gospel, I will go be­fore you, and my Spirit of Truth shall abide in your hearts. My peace I leave with you.”

• defined as › simply traits which Jesus manifested

194:3.1Many queer and strange teach­ings be­came as­so­ci­ated with the early nar­ra­tives of the day of Pen­te­cost. In sub­se­quent times the events of this day, on which the Spirit of Truth, the new teacher, came to dwell with man­kind, have be­come con­fused with the fool­ish out­breaks of ram­pant emo­tion­al­ism. The chief mis­sion of this out­poured spirit of the Fa­ther and the Son is to teach men about the truths of the Fa­ther’s love and the Son’s mercy. These are the truths of di­vin­ity which men can com­pre­hend more fully than all the other di­vine traits of char­ac­ter. The Spirit of Truth is con­cerned pri­mar­ily with the rev­e­la­tion of the Fa­ther’s spirit na­ture and the Son’s moral char­ac­ter. The Cre­ator Son, in the flesh, re­vealed God to men; the Spirit of Truth, in the heart, re­veals the Cre­ator Son to men. When man yields the “fruits of the spirit” in his life, he is sim­ply show­ing forth the traits which the Mas­ter man­i­fested in his own earthly life. When Je­sus was on earth, he lived his life as one per­son­al­ity—Je­sus of Naz­a­reth. As the in­dwelling spirit of the “new teacher,” the Mas­ter has, since Pen­te­cost, been able to live his life anew in the ex­pe­ri­ence of ev­ery truth-taught be­liever.