Galatians 5:22-23
²² But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, ²³ gentleness and self-control. (NIV)

We all want the best God has for us. The issue with receiving the best God has for us is that His best is so good, we can easily be spoiled. Since time began, the gifts of God given to man have been so wonderful, there is a tendency to value the gifts more than the Giver. Valuing anything more than God leads to destruction and God knows this. His solution is to give us His mind and His heart.

The Holy Spirit is the third person of the Trinity. He is the person of God who enters into a human beings working in them to transform their hearts and minds to that of Himself. When our heart is right with God, we value nothing more than Him. We are able to receive all He has because the righteousness within our hearts and mind will not be tempted to discard the Giver for the gifts.

The Holy Spirit is a gift to us from God. We receive the Holy Spirit and we benefit from His goodness. The Holy Spirit, however, is a unique type of gift. He is a gift we receive but this gift is also for the purpose of other people. The presence of the Holy Spirit, in our passage today, refers to the Spirit as fruit. In other places, we are compared to a branch that must be grafted into the vine which is Jesus Christ. A branch might produce fruit and the fruit it produces is a sign of health. But the branch never eats its own fruit. The fruit is for others.

One reason so many Christians do not experience the fullness of God’s goodness is that we receive the Holy Spirit as if He is a gift for us instead of a gift to us and to others through us.

When our spiritual life is consumed by what God is doing or will do for us, but we are not actively involving ourselves in the lives of others to give them what God has given us, we are resisting the gift of the Holy Spirit.

To fully experience the Holy Spirit, we must pursue opportunities to be used by Him for the sake of others.

Prayer: Lord, help me to receive You more by giving to others what You have given to me. Amen.