Manage Your Hungers, Part 4

Scripture — Galatians 5:22-23 (NRSV)

By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things.

Devotion

Galatians 5:16 offers a stirring promise: “So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh” (NIV). When we live in an intimate, vital, transformative relationship with the Spirit of God, we will be increasingly free from the hungers stemming from sin.

How can we know if this is happening? How can we know if we are growing in our ability to reject the desires of the flesh? Certainly, honest inner work can help us see if this is true of us. But we can also look at how we’re actually living. The sinful desires of our hearts will be reflected in the sinful behaviors of our bodies. And these behaviors, according to Paul, are “obvious.” They include “fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these” (5:19-21). If these “works of the flesh” are evident in your life, then you are being led by the “desires of the flesh.”

After giving us a sobering list of sinful attitudes and actions, the Apostle Paul does not urge us to wage war against them. Rather, he presents a contrast between the fruit of fleshly desire and “the fruit of the Spirit” (5:22). If we live in the Spirit (5:16) and if we are led by the Spirit (5:18), then the works of the flesh will not dominate our lives. Rather, our living will be characterized by “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” These virtues will be an outgrowth of our inner desires, desires that are being formed by the Spirit of God. In fact, when we “belong to Christ Jesus” we will “have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires” (5:24). This does not mean we will be perfect, of course. But it does mean that God is at work in us by the Spirit, setting us free from sin and making us more and more like Jesus.

So how do we live as people in whom the Holy Spirit dwells? Paul explains, “If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit” (5:25). By God’s grace, we are made alive by the Spirit (Rom 8:2, 6, 11, 13). In this new dimension of life, we can seek to be guided by the Spirit. When this happens, the fruit of the Spirit will be manifest in our lives. Our lives will be characterized by “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.”

All of these virtues are expressions of what’s happening inside of us. They reflect the inner work being done by the Spirit of God, inner work in which we are partners with the Spirit. This inner work will be manifest in every part of our lives, not just in the personal and private facets. For example, let’s suppose I am sometimes impatient with my colleagues at work. (Well, I’d admit this is more of a reality than a supposition!) If I have divided my life into God’s part (family, church, personal relationships, etc.) and “everything else” (work, shopping, politics, etc.), then I might be inclined to view my impatience as irrelevant to my discipleship. But if I take seriously the fact that God cares about every part of life, including my daily work, then I’ll be inclined to ask the Spirit to help me grow in patience. The growth might come in the form of miraculous motivation. Or it might reflect my deeper understanding of my colleagues as human beings. My growth in patience might also come as the Spirit helps me to see what lies behind my impatience.

Galatians 5 shows us that the Spirit of God helps us when it comes to managing our hungers. On the one hand, the Spirit sets us free from “fleshly desires” that reflect the sin within us. On the other hand, the Spirit forms us and guides us so that our lives might be characterized by “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” Inner work isn’t something we do by ourselves. Rather, the Spirit of God shares in this work with us, showing us where we need to grow and helping us to grow in these very ways.

Find all Life for Leaders devotions here. Explore what the Bible has to say about work at the unique website of our partners, the Theology of Work Project. Reflection on today’s Life for Leaders theme can be found here: Fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23).