Eventually, after a long series, you have to stop admiring the visual diagram, put away the books and keyboard, and ask the plain question: So, what does all this mean? This conclusion is not a guided tour through all seventeen blogs. We’ve already made our way through enough branches to keep a beaver working overtime. Instead, let’s focus on the main principles that have emerged and discuss why they matter for the growth of Christian character. Across this series and the pre

“The Fruit Does Not Lie,” looks at the fruit of the Spirit as the visible evidence that the invisible life of God is growing in us. It is not personality. It is not politeness. It is not fake fruit taped to dead branches. It is the life of Jesus taking shape in ordinary people.

The point is simple: Christian character is not manufactured by religious self-effort. It grows as we walk by the Spirit, keep in step with the Spirit, and breathe the atmosphere of the Spirit.

“Your worst days are never so bad that you are beyond the reach of God’s grace.” — Jerry Bridges, The Discipline of Grace Imagine a man who has had every ounce of his humanity beaten out of him. His name is Jean Valjean. For nineteen years, he was locked away in a brutal French penal colony—initially for stealing a single loaf of bread to feed his starving niece, and then for trying to escape. For nearly two decades, he was treated not as a man, but as an animal with a number