I am convinced it is not possible to have the fruit of the Spirit, love, joy, peace, gentleness, kindness, and self-control while lacking empathy. If there is no empathy there cannot be this fruit.
Galatians 5:22-23
"22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law."
If someone cannot remain living in this fruit, they were never born again. If someone lives a lifestyle of narcissistic traits they do not have the fruit.
1 John 2:19-20 "This is how we know it is the last hour. 19 They went out from us, but they did not belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us. But their departure made it clear that none of them belonged to us."
Those who are narcissists grow worse as they grow older because the fruit they seemed to have when they were younger was a disguise, they knew how to please those they wished to impress but could not do it with those they hated.
Those who have genuine fruit that is a part of their being like an arm or a leg, do not think about walking they just do it without thinking. They do not think about using their arms they just do it, because these things are so much a part of who they are they don't even have to ponder using these appendages.
The fruit of the Spirit is so much a part of the born-again believer that they don't have to think about it, it comes naturally like breathing. When something is a part of us we cannot act any other way except in the fruit.
It is foreign for us to do anything other than the fruit. Those who have to try to act like the fruit are fleshly and walk in their own pride.
May we seek the Lord Jesus Christ to become so much like Him that we don't have to think about the right things to do or be, we just do them because they are who we are deep down inside.
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