June 1, 2017 THE FRUIT
Galatians 5:22-25: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.”
The Holy Spirit of God is real, He is a person, and He lives within each believer, and without the working of the Holy Spirit in us, it would be impossible to live the Christian life. God gave us His Holy Spirit as a means of expressing His life in and through us. The Holy Spirit guides us, teaches us, convicts us when we sin, and reveals the heart of the Father. The Holy Spirit is constantly desiring to express the characteristics and the ways of God and He enables us to be expressions of God. The Holy Spirit does not force us to follow Him, but draws us to Him. We must be aware of the fact that we as believers can refuse this drawing of the Spirit and instead, live according to the flesh, to our own desires. The fruit of the Spirit is just that-fruit. We are not instructed to ‘produce’ these fruits through our own strength and determination, but we are instructed to yield to the work of the Spirit in order that these fruits become evident in our life. And, it is a package deal-we get all of them when the Spirt of God is ruling in our life. There is no higher plane on which to live than to live under the control and influence of the Holy Spirit of God. The Spirit-led life is a super-natural life. At any given moment, we are either living according to the Spirit or according to the flesh (self). God has done what was necessary in order for us to live according to the Spirit-Jesus was crucified and raised from the dead on our behalf, ascended to the Father, and the Holy Spirit was given to each believer. May we realize that we now belong to Christ, and because we belong to Him, we can experience His life in us and find that the fruit of the Spirit is being expressed through us-that’s what it’s all about!
Romans 8:5-6: “For those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace.”
Blessings,
Buddy
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