(Critical M.A.S.)
THE fruit of the Spirit "represents the whole, balanced, spiritual personality." If you don't recognize that last phrase, let me remind you that it appeared way back in the Preface. In that Preface I expressed the opinion that the fruit of the Spirit might well encompass everything that Christ will be looking for in you and me at his return. The development of the fruit is one of the prime purposes of life on this planet. It is by our characters, by what we have done with ourselves, and, thankfully, by the grace of God also, that we will be judged at the gate to the Kingdom.
These notions about the fruit remain with me still. I hope that by now, assuming that you've come the long way and aren't just peeking at this last chapter, you will have some sympathy with them. I hope you now realize why the subject of the fruit of the Spirit impressed me as being so important.
The fruit is coaxed into existence by the reading of the Word with an attitude of delight and meditation. This is what the picture of the spiritual man as a fruitful tree by a river shows us. Psalm One gives that picture. And the attitude of delight is not a matter of temperament or inclination; it's a matter of choice. Left to ourselves, how we feel at any given moment, we may not read and delight in the Word. We have to make the choice to do it.
It must also be our decision to meditate on the Word, having read it. Whether we meditate on the Word or not doesn't depend on the amount of time we think we have available. It takes no more time to meditate than to live. For God's Word to be "our study all the day" (as it is for the spiritual man of Psalm One), our thoughts are to return to the Word constantly throughout the day. We hear the 'voice' of the Word as part of our inner dialogue as we go about our business. "When thou sleepest, it shall keep thee; and when thou awakest, it shall talk with thee" (Prov.6:22).
Gradually, by assimilating the mind of God, the fruit of the Spirit grows in the heart. It's a form of God-manifestation. "God-manifestation, not human salvation," is the purpose of God, to re-quote J. Thomas. Slowly we take in the mind of God and begin to manifest Him in our lives. God is love, and by becoming repositories of that love and channels for it, we begin even now the business of God-manifestation that will culminate for us in the Kingdom when we become, by His grace, perfect embodiments and reflections of the character of God.
We have to emphasize that it is by His grace that we are saved. For while it's true that there are things that we must do, we will NEVER bridge the gap that lies between us and perfection. It's a Grand Canyon of a gap. God's grace bridges it in response to our feeble endeavours. The righteousness we could never attain for ourselves is imputed to us by God because of our faith in Him. He finds our faith in Him extremely pleasing. So much so that He's prepared to overlook a lot of other things because of it.
When it comes to trying to bridge the gap ourselves, we are all like the man of the parable (Matt.18:24) who was forgiven a debt of staggering proportions (though not like him, I trust, in not forgiving those who owe us trifling amounts). Simple arithmetic brings home how huge the man's debt was to his master. He owed 10,000 talents. A talent is about 6,000 denarii (the penny of the New Testament, and incidentally the 'd' in the old £.s.d. [pounds, shillings and pence], if you can remember back that far). A New Testament penny was a day's wages for a labourer. If we conservatively estimate a day's wages today at around £40 for a labourer, multiply that by 6,000 to get the value of a talent at £240,000, then multiply that by 10,000, we reach the astronomical figure of £2,400,000,000! (two thousand, four hundred million pounds).
The parable man hadn't a hope of repaying that amount. And yet he asks time to scrape together the money! Where did he think he was going to get it, I wonder? Work a few extra shifts? He was being totally unrealistic to think he could pay. And so are we if we imagine that by cranking up our spirituality a few extra notches we can gain God's approval. It doesn't work like that. If we think like that, we have totally misjudged the situation—totally misjudged how much we owe.
This reminds me of the story of an enthusiastic young plumber who, shortly after finishing his apprenticeship, was taken to see Niagara Falls. He stood silently watching all those billions of gallons of water plunging over the edge for some moments, then said, "I think I can fix this."
So what is the point of this book if no matter what we achieve spiritually it will never be enough?—if it will always be a drop in the ocean (or the Niagara River). Why bother to improve, to develop more of the fruit of the Spirit, if God is going to bridge the gap with His grace anyway? Why? Because God's grace meets us only part way. Grace doesn't make the whole journey. We have to be moving forwards, towards Him, for Him to be moving towards us. "Draw near to God and He will draw near to you" (Jas.4:8).
We are to be like the prodigal son whose father came out to meet him while he was still a long way off. The Father saw that His son was travelling towards Him.
It's not that the more spiritual we become, the less we need God's grace (we may reduce our multi-million pound debt by a pound or two!). In fact, the more spiritual we become, the more we realise how much we need God's grace, and the more we realise that we have it!
But if we don't make any moves to better ourselves, which is the reason God gave us His Word, and if we think we can leave it all to God, then our attitude is akin to saying, "Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound" (Rom.6:1). We're saying, "I won't improve myself spiritually because God will make up what I lack with His grace. So let it abound!" That attitude doesn't maintain the status quo; it causes a backward slide. I recently heard living the Truth likened to riding a bicycle: if you stop moving forwards, you fall over.
We will never reach perfection in this life. But we must each have what I call a Maximum Achievable Spirituality (M.A.S.). It will differ for each of us. It is the maximum, given who we are, and the circumstances in which we find ourselves, that it is possible for us to attain. That for us is our own personal perfection. That's the goal for each of us. It's a long way short of true perfection, but it's as far as we're going to get until the Kingdom comes.
Normally a major pitfall with having such a goal as M.A.S. is that it would tend to make us legalistic. We would start setting ourselves tasks like so much Bible reading per week, so much prayer time, so many tasks done for other people, never missing a meeting. But that doesn't happen when we approach our spirituality from the right direction. It doesn't happen when we approach it from the direction of who we are, instead of what we do.
Making the decision, the choice, to delight and meditate in the Word is all we need do. "One thing is needful." Continue in that one thing and the fruit of the Spirit is bound to develop. The works will then take care of themselves. You won't need a check-list. You'll do all you need to do and hardly be aware you're doing it. And at the same time you'll be dealing fairly effectively with the works of the flesh. You'll be doing what comes naturally. Or rather you won't. You'll be doing what comes spiritually—only it will seem natural to you!
So if you feel as if you're not making any spiritual headway, make a commitment now to delight and meditate in the Word. Then see how your garden grows. Don't put it off. Don't be one of those people who always intends to be a better person. Sometimes when I've given a talk on the fruit of the Spirit I've put a slide of a favourite 'Peanuts' cartoon on the screen to conclude. Charlie Brown's sister says to him: "I've decided to try to be a better person... But not now, of course... Maybe a few days from now."
A few days from now isn't the best time. If you're always planning to be a better person, you never will be.
Never aim low, or be half-hearted about following the spiritual path. There's no enjoyment in that. Real enjoyment in most things in life comes only with commitment, with really throwing yourself into something. Live with passion! And remember you are allowed to enjoy being a Christian—joy is a part of the fruit.
May God bless you in achieving your Maximum Achievable Spirituality.