THE FRUIT OF THE HOLY SPIRIT: THE GENTLE SHEPHERD'S TOUCH

Galatians 5:22-23

New International Version (NIV)

 ²² But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, ²³gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.


Today, I am thinking today about gentleness. The world we live in has lost sight of this component of the fruit of the Holy Spirit. We live in a very harsh and crude world. People in general are uncaring, selfish, and are living for themselves. You can be treated anyway but gentle in this old world.


It seems only right if the rest of the world rough and unkind, that those who are bearing the fruit of God's Holy Spirit should be gentle in their ways. The dictionary defines gentleness as "mild in temperament or behavior; kind or tender and touching with tender care." As Christians, we will definitely stand out and be different if we are touching others with tender care. The best of Christ Jesus comes forth in us when we are not afraid to touch the untouchable. When we think of how Jesus dealt with us, we are mindful of His gentle touch in our lives. He is the gentle Shepherd of our souls. Gently leading and guiding us to the abundant life He preached about in the gospels. I know that when God touched me, it was not with the heavy hand of judgement, but was, instead, with the gentle hand of redemption. I certainly deserved judgement, but He loved me and scooped me out of the muck and filth I was mired down in, and set my feet on the Solid Rock.


Everything we do as Christians should be tempered with gentleness so that the unmistakable character of Jesus will be infused our work. Take some time as you move through your life and look around you. You will find everywhere, those who are casualties of the roughness of this world. Under the leadership of the Holy Spirit, begin to ask the Lord to direct you as to how to show the gentle love of God to them. You will see people surprised and they will respond because gentleness is attractive and unusual today. You can talk all day about God, but to show gentleness to someone removes judgement and opens the door for God Himself to show up....that's what I've been thinking....

FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT: FAITHFULNESS KEEPS YOU IN THE LIFE

Galatians 5:22-23

New International Version (NIV)

 ²² But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, ²³gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.


Today I have been meditating on seventh component of the fruit of the Holy Spirit, "faithfulness". Faithfulness has the root word "faith" as a foundation. In the Greek it is the "pistis". This word is a total and absolute trust and reliance on God for all we have and do in life. 


Faithfulness is a the part of the fruit of the Holy Spirit that puts us in the right place to receive the blessings of God. Faithfulness is the quality of the Christian's character that keeps us in the life of God. Many people are not faithful. They seek God when they have a need, praise God when the get a blessing, and fall away when things are tough. Faithfulness is what is produced when you have real faith. Real faith allows you not only to trust God when things are going as you desire, but keeps you in a place of worship, service, and fruitfulness day in and day out. 


Many people are on the threshold of receiving a blessing and that's when the enemy will come at you. He wants you to back off and move away from that threshold. If you aren't present in the faith you can get robbed of the joy that God has for us. Years ago, I heard the testimony of a missionary lady named Bertha Smith. She was a missionary to China during the Boxer Rebellion. She made two statements that have stuck with me for about 40 years. One of the young preachers at the conference asked Sister Bertha how she felt. She said she didn't take time to check her feelings. She said that it did not matter how she felt, she lived by faith and feelings will take you out of the realm of faith very quickly. She recommended that Christians stopped checking how they feel and get up every day committed to serving the Lord. The second statement she made was that she looked to the word and discovered where the blessings of God were being poured out and then she stood under the spout. If you don't operate in faithfulness you won't even be in the right vicinity for the blessing. 


We need to make a commitment to our God that is a life-long commitment. When we start wavering, we will miss out on every blessing. We spend a lot of time looking for the "big" blessing from God. If we have this mindset, we will walk past all the little blessings that make life special. If we aren't faithful, all the other components of the fruit of the Holy Spirit are wasted and not used on a daily basis. I am determined to walk faithfully for God every moment of every day. That's what I've been thinking.....

FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT: NOT MY GOODNESS BUT HIS

Galatians 5:22-23

New International Version (NIV)

 ²² But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, ²³gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.


One of the great components of the fruit of the Holy Spirit is the attribute of "goodness". I have been thinking about the goodness of the Lord the past couple of days and I have been overwhelmed by the awesome goodness of God. In our church we often say, "God is good all the time and all the time God is good!!" The goodness of God is a prominent theme throughout the whole of the word of God.The word good and its derivatives are found over 800 times in the scripture. It seems that this is a wonderful and prevailing character of the Lord of Hosts. 


Goodness cuts through all the words and gets to the heart of the matter. God's entire heart toward us is goodness. He has always and will always be loving and good to us, His creation. The word says He has loved us with an everlasting love. The one thing we can always count on is that God has our best interest at heart and everything that He does is good for us. Remember what Romans 8:28 says that in every circumstance and every situation, that God will take these things and cause them to work for our GOOD. What an awesome and powerful thing to consider. We are not magically sucked out of the world and the condition of man. We are though, given the promise that whatever the world throws at us, we can face it with faith. Not everything we face is good, but God will take even the bad stuff and keep us on track by "causing" everything in our lives to bring us to a place of confident trust in His goodness.


How are we display the goodness of God in our own lives? We are really designed  to show forth the glory of our God. We do this best when we take the goodness that God has bestowed on us, and let it flow openly to the people we touch everyday. The Word says that the world will know that we are His people by His love-not our words, not our deeds, but by the love that motivates our words and actions. The goodness of the Lord will change us, change those around us, and compel us to serve people with the heart of the God. That makes all the difference in the world. That's what I am thinking....

FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT: IT'S YOUR KINDNESS, LORD, THAT DRAWS US TO REPENTANCE.

Galatians 5:22-23

New International Version (NIV)

 ²² But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, ²³gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.


I have spent the last few hours thinking about "kindness" and its attributes. This is the fifth component of the fruit of the Spirit. I have been contemplating the nine separate aspects that complete the fruit and give us Godly character that mirror the Lord Jesus Christ.


God said "I led them with cords of human kindness, with ties of love. To them I was like one who lifts a little child to the cheek, and I bent down to feed them." Hosea 11:4. This scripture is an awesome picture of the kindness of the Lord toward us. Kindness is what compassion looks like. The word tells us that God is a God of compassion. Compassion is the quality that compels us to act on with kindness toward those we come in contact with.


First of all we need to be kind to those who are part of the body of Christ. Galatians 6:9-10 exhorts us to "not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. ¹⁰ Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers." This verse tells us that we should especially do good to those who are part of our family of believers. We are to do good to others for sure but we are to go out of our way to show kindness to the body of Christ. You would think that should be easy to do. But the truth is we tend to hold our brothers and sisters to a higher standard than we do the world, and that's okay as long as we don't judge and cut our church family off when they fail. Christian's do fail, you know. and the test of kindness comes in how we handle those covered in the stink of failure. A kind word or deed encourages a saint to get back up and try again. Judgement and condemnation can cut them off from the grace of God which should flow through the body.  Remember kindness is best appropriated to those who find themselves without hope, without food, without friends, and without love. I know this first hand. At a time in my life when I was unlovely and walking in bitterness, the kindness of other Christians pulled me back to the life that is found in the body of Christ.


We are also to share the kindness that God has bestowed on us with the lost and dying world that we rub shoulders with every day. To feed the hungry, to visit those in prison, to give to the needy, and to bless the downtrodden is to epitomize the grace and nature of Christ Himself. As we remember what Christ did for us, it should encourage us to share that same kind of love and kindness to others. This attribute of Christ is one of the strongest and most powerful life changing aspects of the fruit of the Holy Spirit. When we show kindness to those in need, we come to the place of bending to lift up the fallen and kiss the cheek of the lonely in this world. While others pass them by with a look of disdain, we stop along the road of life to help put them on a path to God.


One of my favorite worship choruses is the song "Kindness".  One of the lines in this song says, "It's you kindness Lord that draws us to repentance". Such a powerful statement. If you want to be a soul winner, just let the kindness of Christ flow through you and you will see the souls of many transformed, drawn out of darkness, and established in the kingdom of His marvelous light. That's what I'm thinking!!

FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT: FORBEAR ONE ANOTHER?? HUH???

Galatians 5:22-23

New International Version (NIV)

 ²² But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, ²³gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.

Today I have been thinking about "forbearance". This is the fourth component of the fruit of the Holy Spirit. What does this word mean? Forbearance means that we are living the way of God in such a way that we are looking for the best in people and not wanting to judge them but see God's plan carried out on their behalf.  It is an absence of malice toward those who are apt to wrong us or sin against us. 

First, let's look at what living without forbearance causes in our lives. Sometimes it puts in perspective what something is to discover what it isn't. Without forbearance we will experience the following.

• we don't care about people but instead focus on their sin. The result of this type of living is that we walk in judgement. This separates us from God and we are guilty of judging others without caring about the circumstances or wounds that created their behavior.
• we are also guilty of holding resentment against those who wrong us or the ones that we love. This activity will cause us to use up all kinds of energy spiritually so that we are distracted from God's will and love.
• we will be guilty of keeping a record of hurts and wounds. Things that should be forgiven and under the blood of Christ, remain in our minds and hearts bringing us to a place that gives birth to bitterness that contaminates every thought and deed.
• the next step in this process is that we begin to withhold fellowship from everyone because there is a lack of trust and a spiritual barrier that keeps us from letting anyone in and causes us to resist really investing in the lives of others.
• the end result is that we wish something evil on people who have hurt us or offended us in some way. We want to SEE revenge and witness them reaping what they have sown. We are guilty at this point of taking joy in seeing someone else being hurt.

All of these things are cruel and sinful. This is not the life that God has anointed and ordained that we should walk in. The word tells us that when we love someone, we desire to heal them and be a cover for them. Not condoning sin but instead to be a factor in them being healed from the root cause, whatever that may be. Forbearance is sort of like walking in "pre-forgiveness". We already know that people are going to mess up so we determine in our hearts that when that happens, we are committed to not letting that destroy the work of God that is in us.

What an awesome part of the fruit of the Holy Spirit forbearance is. This display of God in your life will surely display the work that God does in the believer. Go ahead and give those around you permission to be human with the knowledge that when you do get hurt (and you will) that you have a God big enough to heal and keep you on the right track. We could all use a little forbearance...just sayin'

THE FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT- JOY UNSPEAKABLE AND FULL OF HIS GLORY

Galatians 5:22-23 New International Version (NIV)

 ²² But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, ²³gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.


Today, I want to discuss the second component of the fruit of the Holy Spirit referred to as "joy". This is an important aspect of the fruit. Joy is our source of strength according to Nehemiah 8:10. What an awesome strength we can receive from the Lord our God through operating in joy.


Joy is the fruit of a right relation with God. It is not something people can create by their own efforts. The Bible distinguishes joy from pleasure. The Greek word for pleasure is the word from which we get our word hedonism, the philosophy of self-centered pleasure-seeking. Paul referred to false teachers as “lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God” (2 Timothy 3:4).  Self-produced happiness is momentary and never ever lasts. 


When we are in a right relationship with God, loving, trusting, and depending on Him and HIs mercies we are filled with a joy that has its roots in eternity. This is not an emotional "feeling" that can fade away with a simple turn of events. Instead, the joy of the Lord is a condition that places us in a position to see things from a heavenly perspective. The word of God tells us that we are seated in heavenly places far above this world. From the perspective of happiness, life can look like a tattered mess because we see things from underneath the circumstance. When we live in the Spirit, we can see that what seems tattered to the rest of humanity is a beautiful tapestry with God's design and purpose to it.


This component of the fruit of the Spirit allows us to be set apart from those who are walking in temporary fulfillment and allows us to praise the Lord in all things and for all things, even when we don't understand it. While the world asks "Why?" we can continue to serve Him knowing He cause all things to work together for our good. What an awesome and life-changing walk this produces. As we abide in Him the life of God flows through us and joy is contagious. It gets on everyone we come in contact with and impacts their lives for the glory of God. 


Don't settle for mere "happiness", instead, go for the gold standard of God-JOY!!

FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT SERIES: LOVE

Galatians 5:22-23 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. I am planning to spend the next few days writing about the fruit of the Spirit. There is so much here that I could spend months talking about each part of the fruit but I will try to apply the "self-control" that God gives us and keep it somewhat brief.   We learn from scripture that these are not individual "fruits" from which we pick and choose. Rather, the fruit of the Spirit is one ninefold "fruit" that characterizes all who truly walk in the Holy Spirit. When you think about fruit there are different components that make the "whole" of the fruit. For instance, on an apple you have the peal, the meat, the core, the seed, etc. This is the way it is with the spiritual fruit that we are to bear for God. If we are to produce healthy fruit that shows all of the character of God, we have to develop each component. Too many times we want to focus on the things that we seem to have natural strength in. The truth is we should try to develop all these attributes equally so that we represent the nature of Christ fully in us. The first part of the Spirit's fruit is love. This makes sense because in 1 Corinthians 13, the scripture tells us that if we have all manner of good things and don't have love we really have nothing. So, it is logical that the first attribute on the component list of God's fruit is love. Now this is not brotherly love or sexual carnal love, this is "agape" or God's love. God's love is unconditional and stems from the love we have received from God. One of the characteristics of God's love is that it is unconditional. We, on our own, try to love, we come up very short. Our love is no match for the shortfalls of humanity. Sinners will sin-right in front of us. Fleshly love, even brotherly love is not enough to withstand the onslaught of sin. We will break down and toss aside those we are trying to love if we try to do it on our own.  The word of God tells us that God's love keeps on loving, even when we fail and fall. If we take that love we have been given from God, and then let it flow through us, we can keep on loving people even when they fail. The love of God is given with no expectation. It is there as an agent of change. It is also an attractive and irresistible love. If we love people with that love they will have to trample on the power of God and His drawing them.  One thing that is important to consider with fruit is that the life developing nutrition flows from the plant itself into the fruit through the stem. The fruit has to be connected to the plant in order to receive all that it needs. Sounds a little like John Chapter 15. Love - "And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him" (1 John 4:16). Through Jesus Christ, our greatest goal is to do all things in love. "Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails" (1 Corinthians 13:4-8).