The Holy Spirit wants to thrive within us, not just lie dormant. A mounting desire to please God is what we should expect from the Spirit’s indwelling presence. And as a part of this yearning to please Him comes a sense that we are to be holy. Because God is holy, a godly life must be a holy life. But let’s be realistic: How many of us could say that we are altogether holy in our attitudes and behavior?

Still, though achieving such perfection is hard to imagine, we can’t deny that Scripture points us there. So we often sense little alternative but to work for it. Don’t feel alone! It’s actually pretty common to think of holiness as being the result of what a person has achieved. Isn’t that how all religions see it—those unapproachable Holy Men? God’s kingdom is different. He’s provided the way for all of us to be “holy and blameless before Him.” Colossians 1:22

Law reveals the standard by which we are to conform to God’s righteousness. Through its call to obedience, law steers us toward God’s character. Its purpose is to bring to light the holiness of God, while exposing the sinful weakness of our humanity.

And law has an additional impact as it confronts our nature. Because rebellion is such a significant ingredient of a life centered on self, law can actually have the effect of intensifying our destructive desires:  “Yeah, I wanted to do that, but now that I know it’s wrong, I really want it!”

Or maybe you didn’t even have a desire for a particular thing, but now that you’ve been told not to, all of a sudden you want it: “No trespassing? Well, I really didn’t want to go there anyway, but now I wonder what I’m missing!” With law comes awareness of the internal rebellion common to us all. “Sin is lawlessness.” (1 John 3:4)

Freedom in Christ! What a blessing! But what we do with this treasure is huge, because our choices ultimately determine our fruitfulness—that is, to what degree we end up glorifying God with our lives. Paul’s radical message of liberty in Christ prompted his critics to charge him with promoting freedom to sin rather than the freedom from sin he was actually teaching. His response: “Nonsense!”

Still, it’s only natural to be a bit puzzled over it. Given our ingrained beliefs about personal responsibility to resist sin, this whole freedom thing doesn’t seem to add up. I think we can all agree that any thought of maintaining a lifestyle of sin is absurd. Why bother being freed if we merely set ourselves up to be enslaved all over again? The point is this: freedom lays the foundation for unfettered pursuit of Him—yes, even in spite of the weakness of our flesh.

Righteousness can never be earned by working for it. It’s easy for us to think of salvation as a free gift of God’s grace. But righteousness? Now that’s a different story. Being righteous is rooted in the fact that Christ is now in me, and I in Him. It’s not about getting God to accept me; He’s already done that. Redemption means that we have actually become the righteousness of God Himself, allowing us an almost unbelievable status with God.

The question is how the reality of God’s righteousness, having now become our own, plays out in the believer over the course of his life. What about our old nemesis: sin? How is it that God could allow our struggle with sin to exist right alongside this awesome righteousness we now possess? The incredible gift of God’s grace has everything to do with it! In Christ, God has actually caused us to die to sin itself.

Hidden sin, by its very nature, opens wide the floodgates of guilt and shame. So, a negative reaction is no surprise: “I’ll just bury this thing a little deeper so no one will ever discover who I really am.” Satan has used shame in countless lives persuading God’s people to back-slide, where alienation from Him becomes a way of life. Just think how being more open about our weakness would serve to cripple this strategy the devil so routinely exploits.

Instead of allowing sin to drive us from God, we need to run to God when we sin. This can be difficult, though, because we’ve been taught to behave ourselves. And when we don’t, our conscience tells us we must clean up our act before we can ever turn to God. After all, how else can we feel worthy enough to deserve His help? False thinking, I know, but very real all the same.

Isn’t our sin embarrassing? Not just the obvious ones, but ungodly attitudes as well! We instinctively cover sin up, trying to appear more respectable than we really are. No doubt pride has a lot to do with this. When we sin we tend to run from God. We do this not just because we sense God’s displeasure, but because we think no one else has these problems. “How could I do something so displeasing to God? What inner flaw would provoke me to even think of such a thing?”

Trying to keep sin hidden always leads to an oppressive sense of shame. Shame has a crippling effect on a person’s life. Psychologists say that it’s often at the heart of emotional dysfunction. So it’s not hard to see how Satan—who is called “the accuser of our brethren”—can use shame as a wedge to drive us from God.

In Christ we enjoy the marvelous advantage of absolute security. But we must not let it stop there. The Lord has called us to even greater purpose—wholehearted submission to His will. Such intentional commitment to Him demands that our life be squarely aimed at two very important targets: first, to serve Him, and, second, to embrace spiritual growth through personal transformation. These goals provide the catalyst for bearing “much fruit.”

Jesus wants radical change for us: “do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind,” Paul says in Romans 12:2. Rarely does this happen instantaneously. Rather it takes a transformation of our character, which is always a more arduous and painful solution to the problem. Yet as annoying as this approach might seem, ultimately it is far more productive when the entire scope of God’s purpose is taken into account.

Jesus said, “My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be my disciples.” Bearing fruit—abundant fruit, in particular—truly glorifies God and ultimately proves that we are Christ’s disciples. And nowhere does Jesus say it better than when He talks about being the “true vine.”  Here Jesus is the vine and we are the branches, a relationship that can’t help but be fruitful—provided, that is, that each of the parties is faithful to do his part.

A variety of virtues are embodied in godly fruit, but its highest and all-encompassing expression is love—love of God, love for His family and, more generally, love toward others. We all know, however, that such fruit doesn’t simply materialize overnight. It only can grow and develop over time as we steadily draw on God’s life.