To Keep it, You Must Give it Away

Lately I have focused a tremendous amount of study and prayer on Paul’s writing to the church in Galatia. Paul tells us in Galations 5: 22-26 (ESV), “ But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.” Paul here is addressing the larger subject of the importance of being filled with the Spirit, and the impossibility of living a life pleasing to God without everything we do on the outside being driven by an inward filling of the Spirit of God. My thoughts on this passage have taken many twists and turns in the last few months, but as of late, I have found myself focused on the importance of GIVING away these “fruit of the Spirit” in order to KEEP them.

I have a dear friend who is heavily involved in the Alcoholics Anonymous program. I count this man as a dear friend and in many ways, a confidant and mentor. It was some time ago that this friend shared with me the famous AA statement, “To Keep it, You Must Give it Away”.  When I first heard the statement, I immediately liked it and began to use it in everyday conversation and apply it as a principle to my life. However it was not until recently while studying Paul’s writing in Galations that I felt like God spoke to me this thought as it relates DIRECTLY to the “fruit of the Spirit”.

The only way to have the fruit of the spirit (love, joy peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control) in our life is to have the Spirit of God. The only way to keep them in our life is, obviously as Paul states, “be led by the Spirit” and “stay full of the Spirit”, but in addition, we must GIVE them away! It is the giving away of these “fruits” that enable us to keep a free flow of them coming to us. If we truly are manifesting the fruit of the Spirit, we will also be giving them away!

You ask, what meaneth this?!

The only way to have love is to give it away and you cannot really love, except you have the Spirit of God which is love!

The only way to have joy is to give it away, and you cannot really have joy, except you have the Spirit of God which is joy!

The only way to have peace is to give it away, and you cannot really have peace, except you have the Spirit of God which is peace!

I think we get the point.

Jesus also famously echoed this sentiment in Matthew 5:7 in what is known as the beatitudes when he said, "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.”

      Of the many dangers and pitfalls of spiritual pride, probably one of the greatest, is the  thinking that by works of self righteousness, apart from the inward working of the Spirit of God, that one can produce the “fruit of the Spirit”. Not only is this impossible as Paul writes, this type of self righteousness is never something that one gives away, after all it is all about SELF!

TO KEEP IT, YOU MUST GIVE IT AWAY!

Thanks for reading today!