There are different kinds of fruit but only one type lasts forever.

There is a type of fruit called spiritual which belongs only to God’s people. Believers love God because of his first love towards them. Love is the first of the fruits that the apostle mentions in this passage, all of which come through the cross. The second fruit is joy. This needs to be contrasted with happiness … one is short-lived but the other is ongoing and independent of circumstances. The next fruit is patience which is directed towards other people.

Patience is followed by kindness and the sense of it here is connected with being useful to others. It can lead others to repentance for wrong. The next fruit is goodness and here care is needed because the word is used in many different ways throughout the world. It is not a means of justifying ourselves but a disposition which looks to the source of true goodness in God and then seeks to live that out.

Faithfulness means to avoid being driven by success and, as with all the other fruits which include gentleness and self-control, is produced by abiding in the vine, a reference to Jesus. He was crucified so that those who are united to him by faith can produce these beautiful fruits for His kingdom. Not every believer will be producing all these fruits in abundance at all times. They will be affected by trials of various kinds and the strength of faith with which each person is endued.