Loving Restoration 

What does it mean to ‘live by the Spirit?’

Fundamentally it’s about having an active relationship with God and allowing the Holy Spirit to shape and form and transform us. This whole series is about cultivating the fruit of Spirit. 

You cannot have fruit without a tree planted in good soil and nurtured properly, in the same way, you cannot have the fruit of the Spirit without an active honest relationship with God. All of them, love, self-control, goodness, are the result (the fruit!) of our relationship with God. Love, a fruit of the Spirit, is something which we often associate with positive fun feelings, it’s actually something much deeper. Sometimes the most loving thing we can do for someone is to challenge them and give them the unvarnished truth. 

The use of the word ‘restore’ here is so lovely and helpful. Notice that we’re not called to transform- that’s the job of the Holy Spirit. We’re all made in the image of God but that image often gets distorted by our own selfishness- a.k.a sin.

So this call to restore our brothers and sisters gently is to remind them of who God made them to be and wipe the mud off their faces so that we can see the beauty. A heavy hand of judgment is often the result of an inflated sense of our own righteousness and ego. 

Those who can challenge loving, with gentleness, are often those who understand that they themselves are sinners; and before taking the speck out of their friend's eye they take the plank out of their own. It’s easier to restore someone in gentleness when you’re aware of how much you need to be restored too.