How do you know you’re a child of God?
Easy. Paul gives us a litmus test: “For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God” (Romans 8:14).
Simple as that.
Except, of course, for the fact that the Spirit of God is typically invisible, intangible and incorporeal in our physical world.
That complicates things. We believe God’s Spirit exists—we believe that it’s present in the lives of God’s people and that it’s making a measurable impact on those lives—but we can’t just point directly at it and say, “Here it is; I’m clearly being led by it.” It’s not that easy.
But it is important.
It’s important because the opposite of Romans 8:14 is also true—if we’re not being led by the Spirit of God, then we are not the children of God.
So, then—what proof do we have that this invisible and intangible Spirit is active in our lives? If following this Spirit is the mark of God’s children, what can we do to verify we’re being led by it?
When the New Testament Church began, God made it obvious that He was pouring out His Spirit on His people. Everyone present heard the sound of “a rushing mighty wind” (Acts 2:2). “Tongues, as of fire” (verse 3) appeared over the disciples, and they began speaking in foreign languages—at which point “the multitude came together, and were confused, because everyone heard them speak in his own language” (verse 6).
For this monumental occurrence, God gave visible signs of the invisible so that it would be quite clear what was happening. He did something similar during several other key moments of the early Church (see Acts 10:44-48; 19:1-6). But generally, that’s not what happens when people receive the Holy Spirit. The heavens don’t generally open, fire doesn’t typically sit on anyone’s head, and people don’t usually start speaking in other languages. In fact, when God gives His Spirit to someone today, there’s no evidence that He provides any external indication of that gift.
After the events of Acts 2, Peter laid out the process for receiving God’s Spirit: “Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call” (Acts 2:38-39).
After true, genuine repentance and after being baptized by a minister of Jesus Christ, we are given God’s Spirit through the laying on of hands (Acts 8:14-17; compare 2 Timothy 1:6-7). This isn’t just something that might happen—this is a promise from God that we can count on. If we follow the steps Peter laid out, God will give us His Spirit.
But we must not stop there. We must then be led by God’s Spirit. If we aren’t, we are in danger of neglecting this great gift or quenching the Spirit (1 Thessalonians 5:19). This can be the difference between being part of God’s family and not, so it’s vital that we figure it out—which, of course, brings us right back to the original problem. What does being led by an invisible, intangible Spirit even look like?
The answer isn’t actually that complicated. Jesus explained to His disciples, “For a good tree does not bear bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit. For every tree is known by its own fruit. For men do not gather figs from thorns, nor do they gather grapes from a bramble bush. A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart brings forth evil. For out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks” (Luke 6:43-45).
In other words, “What’s inside gets out.” Bad or good, who we are at our core invariably shows in the things we say and the things we do. We might be able to hide it for a while or put up a smoke screen, but our true colors don’t stay hidden forever.
That’s where being led by the Spirit comes into play. God’s Spirit is a lot like the wind—we might not be able to see it, but we can easily see (and discern) its impact. If that Spirit is active in our lives—if we’re allowing it (and, by extension, God) to lead us, it’s going to begin to change who we are on the inside.
And, just as Christ promised, that change is going to make its way to the surface. It’s going to show itself in how we talk and how we act. Every tree is known by its fruit, and the Spirit of God produces fruit too.
Paul described that fruit in one of the more famous passages of the Bible. He began by contrasting it with something he called “the works of the flesh.” Like the Spirit, the flesh—that is, human nature devoid of God’s Spirit—produces recognizable fruit:
“Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God” (Galatians 5:19-21).
The works of the flesh are abominable to God—they include the absolute worst our human nature is capable of, and they’re the very traits that will exclude us from God’s coming Kingdom.
“But the fruit of the Spirit,” said Paul, “is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires” (Galatians 5:22-24).
Being led by the Spirit of God means replacing the sinful works of the flesh with the nine traits Paul identified as the fruit of that Spirit. The extent to which those nine traits are present in our lives is a direct reflection of the extent to which we are being led by God’s Spirit. The more those traits grow, the more we are in alignment with that Spirit. And the more absent those traits become, the more we’re losing contact with God’s Spirit.
We’re going to make those nine traits the focus of this Journey. Every day, we’re going to take a single trait and dissect it. What word did Paul use for this trait? What does it mean? Why is it significant? How do we develop it? How can we hinder that development? What does it look like in practice? At the end of it all, we’ll aim to walk away from this Journey with a more complete picture of not just the fruit of the Spirit, but what it means to be a Christian—what it means to be led by the Spirit of God.
But before we go any further, we need to talk about a common misconception when it comes to the fruit of the Spirit:
It’s not “fruits.”
Paul didn’t write about the fruits of the Spirit; he wrote about the fruit of the Spirit. If you’re wondering why that matters, consider this:
The fruit of the orange tree is round, orange, juicy, pulpy and surrounded by a rind. When we’re talking about an orange, all those things are true, all at the same time. A round orange isn’t different from a pulpy orange—it’s the same fruit, with the same characteristics.
But sometimes we talk about the fruit of the Spirit as if it’s more than one fruit—as if a single tree were growing apples and oranges and lemons and mangoes, and they all existed independently from one another—as if we could pluck faithfulness from this tree without disturbing longsuffering and self-control.
That’s not how it works. The fruit of the orange tree is round, orange, juicy, pulpy and surrounded by a rind. It’s all of those things at the same time. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. It is also all those things at the same time. Each trait only describes a facet of that fruit—a single part of a bigger picture.
As we move through this Journey, it’s essential that we view each of these traits as part of the whole. We cannot have peace without joy and still call it the fruit of the Spirit. We cannot have love without faithfulness and still call it the fruit of the Spirit. Every facet must be present and accounted for, or else the result is a flawed and defective fruit, like an orange without a rind.
God has entrusted us with His Holy Spirit, and with that Spirit comes both the potential and the responsibility for incredible growth. But here’s the thing: that growth isn’t going to be a straight line. Walking this path means we’ll have ups and downs—good days and bad days. Faith, love, joy, peace, all of it—there will be days we have a better handle on the fruit of the Spirit, and days when we don’t.
That doesn’t mean we’re not growing. It means we’re human and that sometimes we fall short. What matters is that we get back up after each shortcoming and, with God’s help, try again. And as we examine the fruit of the Spirit more closely, we’ll come to see why that growth matters and how to ensure it takes place in our lives.
Let’s get started.
