Just a few things from a book that I read not too long ago that I really liked. The book was called Naked Fruit and basically it went through all the fruits of the spirit and described them and explained ways they should be shown in our lives.

Fruits of the Spirit

• Fruit is the result of growth. It's the evidence that a plant or a vine or a tree has been rooted and established, fed and nurtured, watered and staked and pruned to the point of reproducing. Spiritual fruit is what results in our lives when we root ourselves in a relationship with God. When we live a life connected like this with God, he grows his nature in who we are and fruit results: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. (pg. 18)
  
• The fruits of the Spirit are those God-like qualities that make us look like him. They are his nature exhibited in our personalities. When we plant ourselves in a relationship with Jesus, day in and day out, the result of that relationship is the fruit of his characteristics in us. The fruit of the Spirit is what we look like when we're like Jesus. (pg. 19)
  
• By our own efforts, based on our own natures, we'll grow fruit of the flesh. It might be nice, but it won't look like Jesus. It won't be naked fruit. Our best efforts won't grow godliness, because the fruit of the Spirit comes forth only from godly seeds. We can't make ourselves like God. Only God can do that. Only God can reproduce his nature in us. (pg. 46)
• The fruit of the Spirit only grows when we are connected with God in a relationship with his Son, Jesus.
• We need to remember that it's not about what we can muster and manage. Spiritual fruit grows in our lives by God's initiative as we cooperate with him. it's not up to us to grow all the fruit all at once all the time. But we can cooperate by recognizing where we're missing a fruit that God would like to exhibit in our lives and intentionally asking him to produce it in us. pg 147

Love

• Love. Indeed, seemly the easiest of all qualities to model in so very many moments. Love is there . . . in all things. Except when love is hard. And it can be hard, can't it? Let's get real about love. It can be hard to love people. Love means handing over the remote control when we'd rather keep it, getting up just when we're all settled in a comfy spot, speaking in a balanced tone of voice when we'd rather scream, opening our heart to listen to another when we'd rather allow our own feelings tumble out. Yep, it's hard to love people. (pg. 55)
  
• Love is not about being nice for the sake of niceness; it's about being like Jesus. What would Jesus do in the everyday when it's hard to love hard-to-love people. (pg. 56)
  
• Love: a committed choice to be there . . . .in everything.
  
• Love is also a commitment-in everything. God is committed to us, no matter what. Love stays when it wants to go. It accepts when it wants to reject. It does what it doesn't want to do when it doesn't want to do it. It goes above the "can't stand this person" moments and, squinting, forces itself to look at that someone they way God looks at them, seeing them flawed, yes, but filled with potential. Love is a commitment to keep choosing to love . . . .even when you don't feel like it.

Joy

• Where happiness is circumstantial, joy is not. Joy is more than happiness. The Old Testament describes joy as a quality of life as well as an emotion. . . . Joy is something deep that celebrates God's character despite the circumstances . . . In the New Testament, joy is often expressed as ecstasy, a feeling of amazement, an uninhibited response to God's grace and presence in our days . . . Joy is also connected to hope, to love, and to a perspective that sees beyond the immediate to the eventual. (pg. 66)
• Joy is confidence in God's grace, despite circumstances - despite what happens. Joy is the ability to hold up because we know we are being held up. Joy is the conviction that God is in control of every detail of our lives even when those details appear to be out of control. (pg. 67)
• Joy is confidence in God no matter what happens. Because we've watched God working in so many moments of life - good, bad, confusing, sorrowful, challenging, unfathomable - when we are joyful, we are wrapped up by our observations and help in place, knowing clearly that just as God came through before, he will come through again. (pg. 68)
• Joy is the experience of holding on because we know we are being held.

Peace

• Peace is the result of resting in God. Peace comes from resting in a relationship that holds us in the midst of life's storms and in the momentary calm of their aftermath.
• Peace is the result of resting in a relationship with God.

Patience

• Patience is hanging in there with hard-to-love people . . . sometimes to the point of forgiveness but always to the point of love.
• Patience doesn't mean slapping on a "nice" face and ignoring the reality of how we feel. pg. 86
• Patience is more than a nice face put on in a not-so-nice moment when someone wounds us. It's a supernatural fruit. Patience is a spiritual fruit that grows from the soil of our humanity. As we experience unwelcome wounds from people, God can grow his fruit in our hearts and empower us to respond to such hurt with patience. pg. 86

Kindness

• First, kindness is an action . . . second, kindness is an action coupled with compassion. Kindness cares, and because it cares, it acts. Kindness gets involved. pg. 92
• Kindness is meeting needs; it's action coupled with compassion.
• The naked fruit of kindness is meeting needs. Kindness is acting to meet needs with compassion. Rather than some archaic manner of chivalry or a syrupy-sweet "niceness", kindness is getting up and meeting a need because it's there and we care.

Goodness

• Just as God is good to give us what makes us happy, he is happy to give us what makes us good. His actions consistently push us to the point where we will eventually resemble him. Sometimes that means withholding what we think we want in order to provide what he knows we need. He knows that we seem to grow during the lean times than during the full times of life.
• Goodness is becoming like God, inside and out, in our beings and in our actions, through good and bad times.
• We can't be good on the outside without God first making us good on the inside. Once this process begins, it grows goodness in us, from inside out. Through good times and bad, the fruit of goodness grows us to be like God, inside and out.

Faithfulness

• The spiritual fruit of faithfulness is an active response to God's faithfulness. As he keeps his promises to us, we mirror his faithfulness by keeping our to him. pg 116
• Faithfulness is being true to God. It's keeping our commitment of him in the way he keeps his commitment to us.
• We mirror God's faithfulness by being true to him and true to others.

Gentleness

• Gentleness is a tricky fruit to grow because it requires such surrender, and surrender makes us vulnerable.
• Gentleness is the fruit of the Spirit that yields. Giant yellow triangle sign obeyed, gentleness pauses, looks both ways, and waits for directions before proceeding. With kids. With work. With friendships. With a mate. With parents. And with what we do to become who we want to be.

Self-control

• Most literally, the word self-control comes from two roots: one meaning to rein in or curb and the other meaning to heal, save, or make whole. The roots apply particularly to our sensitive nature, our understanding, and our mind. Thus to be self-controlled is to be "healthy-minded", self-control is a healthy-mindedness that watches for holes in the walls of our lives and keeps them patched.
• Part of healthy-mindedness includes the creation of healthy boundaries by which we opt for control over our issues and relinquish efforts toward issues that belong to others.