God has told us here in Galatians 5:1 that we have been given “liberty”. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary…

“Liberty” is defined as “the state or condition of people who are able to act and speak freely. The power to do or choose what you want.

In other words, we have been given the liberty to do and choose how we want to live our lives in Christ. God does not want us to fight or quarrel against the Holy Spirit. Even though we have the liberty to choose to satisfy our own sinful nature God wants us to yield to His ways.

The word “called” here means to “bid” or “call forth”. God desires that we choose the right decision. Now the problem is that we’re in a spiritual conflict.

We need to understand that the word “flesh” here does not mean the physical body. When we walk in the flesh, we choose (i.e. the liberty) to resist the impulse of the Holy Spirit.

Now, we’ve established that God has given each of us liberty in Him, the right to choose to follow Him or to resist Him by yielding to the desire of our flesh. Without Christ in our hearts, we could not choose to follow Him, the Holy Spirit, that would be impossible. This is the liberty God has given us through our faith in His Son, Jesus.

When we choose to follow the Holy Spirit, we discoverfreedom from sin and most excitingly the new life God wants each of us to experience in Him.

When we follow the Spirit, we discover the fruit of the Spirit. So let me quiz you on this:

You would guess or count that there are nine, but you would be wrong. Look again at the first part of verse 22. It says, “But the fruit of the Spirit is”. Paul uses the singular (fruit, not fruits, of the Spirit). In the big picture, the Spirit has one work to do in all of us. These aren’t the gifts of the Spirit, which are distributed on an individual basis by the will of the Spirit; this is something for every Christian.

The Spirit will produce the ninefold “fruit” that characterize all who truly walk in the Holy Spirit.

Just using the word “fruit” has several important characteristics to relay to us.

· Fruit isn’t achieved by working, but is birthed by abiding.

· Fruit is fragile.

· Fruit reproduces itself.

· Fruit is attractive.

· Fruit nourishes.

It is fitting that love be the first mentioned of the fruit, because it encompasses all of the following. It may even be said that the following eight terms are just describing what love in action looks like. Martin Luther said,

“It would have been enough to mention only the single fruit of love, for love embraces all the fruits of the Spirit.”

In order to experience the fullness of the fruit of the Spirit in our lives we must be set free from sin by the “liberty” God has given us!

When we are set free from the “works of the flesh” as Paul listed in Galatians 5: 19–21, we can become energized and enlivened by God’s Spirit. We will live by the Spirit & be guided by the Holy Spirit! But take note:

As long as we are self-serving (focusing on the flesh), we are not free as God intends us to be.

Here’s a story that describes what it means to have been given liberty (to choose to be free), and yet choosing not to be:

“For a period of time my parents lived in Venice, Florida, the winter home of a well-known circus. Each time we would visit I would take our children to walk around the circus grounds. One time we walked in the area where the elephants were being trained. Each elephant was tied by a heavy iron ankle bracket that was chained to a post in the ground. Each elephant stood there moving its leg in a backward and forward motion trying to free itself from the chain. That is, all but one. It kept moving its leg backward and forward just like the others, only it wasn’t chained to anything. If it wanted to, it could simply walk away. As we approached the trainer, I asked him why the one elephant kept moving its leg when it wasn’t tied to anything and what kept it from just wandering off? The trainer said, “That’s because the elephant thinks its leg is chained to the post. It doesn’t realize that it is free.”

Whenever we can break the shackles of whatever imprisons our souls and we become free in Christ, we will be guided by the Spirit of God and be set free to live a fruitful life that reveals the character of God