Tag Archives: Spirit

The Fruit Of The Root

Bible Study, , , ,

THE FRUIT OF THE ROOT

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

“Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying one another.”  Galatians 5:22-25.

Thankfully there is a counterpart to the nasty evidences of our corrupt hearts. Since Jesus came to take away sin, so said the Apostle John, it is possible for us to live sin-free lives. That does not mean that we are perfect. Far from it; but it does mean that we are not locked into a sinful lifestyle because we are powerless to do otherwise.

With the Holy Spirit resident in us, He changes us, slowly but surely into the Image of Jesus. In contrast to the “acts of the flesh”, which focus on the symptoms of corrupt hearts, Paul lists the work of the Spirit in us as “fruit”. What is the difference?

Jesus used the imagery of the vine and the branches. What do the branches need to do to bear grapes? Nothing. They simple remain attached to the vine. Anything that causes the branch to become detached will kill it. It will have to be pruned off because it has become useless.

What do we need to do to become fruitful? Nothing except to remain in the vine. Jesus even tells us how to remain in Him.

“I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me, and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing…If you remain in me, and my words remain in you, ask what you wish, and it will be done for you…As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in His love.” John 15:5, 7, 9.

Keeping His commandments is the key to remaining in Jesus. But, you may object, isn’t that exactly what Paul said we don’t have to do – to obey the law? Isn’t it the same thing? Not at all. There is a great deal of difference between keeping the law in order to become righteous and keeping Jesus’ commands because we are already righteous.

If we are trying to become righteous by obeying the law, we have failed before we even start. We cannot change the imperfect to the perfect by our own effort because we still have the problem of guilt for our past sin even if we could be perfect from now on. There is a debt to pay and we can do nothing to pay it. God cannot overlook sin because He is a just God. He must deal with transgression of the law.

On the other hand, if someone else pays our debt to God and we are justified and set free from sin’s penalty, we are now indebted to our benefactor. Out of gratitude to Him and love for Him, we do what He instructs us because that is how love is expressed. Love is not love if we go on living the old way. Real love values what Jesus values and hates what He hates. Real love identifies so closely with Jesus that we become one with Him in what He desires.

The law was intended to show us what God is like and to teach us how to be like Him. It didn’t work because all the law did was to provoke to action the rebellion in our sinful natures. Jesus got rid of the law as a requirement for righteousness by fulfilling it for us and then removing the root of sin in our hearts. He replaced it with His own nature – the nature of a son who lives in loving submission and obedience to to the Father, and restored His Spirit to us.

“Now,” said Paul, “you are free to love Him and to follow the Holy Spirit’s leading because you old nature has been put to death.” Your life in union with Jesus will produce the fruit of the root; love, joy, peace – the outflow of your restored relationship with God; patience, kindness, goodness – your attitude to other people; faithfulness, meekness and self-control – your attitude towards yourself.

What is your root? Is it Jesus or is the old selfish nature still in charge?

Acknowledgement

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

 

The Battle Rages On

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THE BATTLE RAGES ON 

“So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.” Galatians 5:16-18.

So here’s the deal. Instead of the law motivating us to obedience, it has the opposite effect from what the Holy Spirit does in us. Before the Holy Spirit quickened our dead spirits and made them alive to God, we had no desire to obey God. We were in a perpetual state of rebellion. When the law said, “Do not…” we said, “I will…” and we deliberately acted in disobedience to God’s requirements. Instead of the law drawing us towards God, it drove us from Him.

Here is the secret of the believer’s life. Through faith in Jesus, God removed our rebellious and stony hearts and gave us new hearts that wanted to obey Him.

“I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all you idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” Ezekiel 36:25, 26.

We have been set free from our load of guilt that caused us to run from God. Now we are free to run to Him. We are free to fear God, not to be afraid of Him because we are no longer slaves but sons. He has put His own Spirit within us, who is like a caring and nurturing mother. Instead of rigid laws which we have to obey or bear the consequences, we have the companionship of Jesus through His Spirit who speaks to us in our hearts. God has poured His love into us. We are free to love Him and other people because He has released us from slavery to ourselves.

We have literally died to our old selves and our selfish ways and have risen to a new life of loving service to God and to our fellow men. This is who we are. Now we must become who we are, sons and daughters of God.

“Since then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God… Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature…” Colossians 3:1-3; 5a.

Jesus won the war but the battle still rages on. As long as we are still in this life, we will have to contend with the enemy who still lives in us – the old nature with its fleshly lusts. Jesus told us to be vigilant. We can never let down our guard because the enemy is relentless in his intention to destroy us and drag us with him to his final doom. We cannot profess to know Jesus and continue to live as we did before, gratifying every whim and desire of our old selfish natures.

The Holy Spirit was given to us to replace the demands of the law. He is the Spirit of God, the Spirit of truth and the Spirit of love. When we listen to Him and follow His leading with His help, we fulfill what God wants us to be effortlessly instead of striving and failing to obey the law.

What does it mean to walk by the Spirit? He took up residence in us from the moment we surrendered our lives to the Lordship of Jesus. We are the temple of the Holy Spirit. He occupies the command centre of our lives. Our job is to cultivate a relationship with Him by listening to Him and by communicating with Him. We will spend the rest of our lives unlearning to be independent and learning to listen and lean on Him.

Unlike earthly parents whose job is to train their children for responsible independence, the Holy Spirit is training us to be helplessly dependent on Him like infants at their mother’s breast. The more we trust Him, the less we will be pulled towards satisfying the lusts of our old nature. Remember what Jesus said:

“I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and me in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.” John 15:5.

How do we fight this battle? By resting in Jesus’ finished work for us.

Acknowledgement

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

 

The Acid Test

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THE ACID TEST

“You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified. I would like to learn just one thing from you. Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law or by believing what you heard? Are you so foolish? After beginning by means of the Spirit, are you now trying to finish by means of the flesh? Have you experienced so much in vain – if it really was in vain?” Galatians 3:1-4.

“It doesn’t matter what you believe as long as you are sincere.” Have you ever heard this statement? Is it true? Really?

It certainly doesn’t work anywhere else in life. If you sincerely believe that you can fly, and you jump off a tall building and spread out your arms, will you fly? Of course not! Believing something that is not based on the truth is futile and you will kill yourself no matter how sincere you are.

So why should it work in the most important part of your life – your relationship with God, and your destiny? Paul had only one word for people who thought like that. Fools! What is a fool? Someone who knows that what he believes doesn’t work but he does it anyway.

Bewitched! Did Paul really believe that these foolish Galatians were under the spell of witchcraft? It depends on what we understand by “witchcraft”. When King Saul failed to carry out God’s instruction to destroy the Amalekites and all their livestock, by saving the king alive and keeping some of the best of the animals, the prophet Samuel rebuked him because his disobedience sprang from an attitude – rebellion, and rebellion was the outcome of something else – fear.

He said this: “Rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft (divination), and arrogance like the evil of idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, He has rejected you as king.” 1 Samuel 15:23

What was Saul’s excuse for being disobedient? “I was afraid of the men, so I gave in to them.” 1 Samuel 1:24b.

Saul gave in to fear – he was more afraid of his soldiers than reverent and respectful to God. That is the heart of witchcraft – being manipulated by fear, be it through unscrupulous people or through believing the lies Satan sows into the mind.

The Galatian believers has been manipulated into believing that they could not be saved just by believing in Jesus. They had to keep the law in order to be acceptable to God. “That is witchcraft.” said Paul. “You are being manipulated by fear.”

Now let’s examine the truth. This is where experience becomes the test. Faith and experience must go hand in hand, otherwise what we believe is not the truth. When we believe the truth, God confirms His word by fulfilling His promises. The presence of the Holy Spirit in the Galatian believers was the test. When did they receive the Spirit – when they believed God’s word, or when they tried to please God by following rules – “Ten Easy Steps to Receiving the Holy Spirit”? Of course the answer was – when they believed.

“So why, then,” asks Paul, “are you afraid of offending God if you don’t do what these false teachers are telling you to do? Do you really think that you can begin by trusting God and receiving the Spirit by faith and then carry on by obeying rules? Is it working for you?” That’s the crux. Is it working for you?

How do we know whether we are living by faith in God’s word, or inadvertently regressing by trying to work for God’s acceptance? God gave us a simple but powerful test – His peace. In Romans 5:1 Paul declared, “Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

God’s peace stands on two feet. One foot is “peace with God”. The other foot is called “the peace of God”. We experience this peace when bad things happen and, “Instead of fretting,” Paul said, “give your anxiety to God. His peace will “guard your heart and your mind through Christ Jesus.” Philippians 4:7b.

“Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful.” Colossians 3:15.

Rule keeping does not produce peace because one never knows whether one has done it perfectly. Believing God’s promises does, because Jesus has done it all for us. All we have to do is rest in Him then He gives us a supernatural peace which cannot be explained by anything outside of Him.

Acknowledgement

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

 

Less Is More

Christian Life, , ,

LESS IS MORE

“In the same say, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And He who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.” Romans 8.26-27.

Prayer is a mystery, isn’t it?

Prayer is simple and yet complicated. It is the interaction between the Father and His child but, at the same time, it is God’s way of ruling the earth. He gave the mandate to the first pair to manage the earth for Him. That mandate has never been withdrawn, even though man changed allegiance in the Garden of Eden. Ever since then, human beings have been exploiting and destroying the earth rather than caring for it.

People who reject God in favour of some deity they have created or some god someone else has created and persuaded them to follow, still believe that they need to “pray”.  How else can they get the attention of their god? But does their god hear? Does their god respond? What are they asking? What is the purpose of their prayers?

As I said, God and His children communicate through an activity called “prayer”. It needs no rituals or accessories to get our God’s attention. He is as near to us as our breath. Contrary to the idea that He is in “heaven”, wherever that is, He is Immanuel – God with us. In actual fact, He is even nearer that that. He is in us! By His Spirit, who is also God, He has taken up residence in our spirits and He represents the Father and the Son within us. He speaks to us and He speaks for us.

Have you ever been in a situation so terrible that you felt absolutely helpless? You didn’t even know what to pray. All you could do was to turn to God, cry out His name and groan or weep. Your only prayer was, “Oh God!” or “Jesus, help!” That was also prayer. The Holy Spirit was right there, in the situation with you, taking your wordless groaning and interpreting it to the Father as a request.

The Holy Spirit has many roles in our hearts. We have already talked about His role as the Spirit of sonship. Without Him we could never understand who we are nor could we utter the cry, “My Abba!” We would never have the assurance that we are God’s children and we would never be able to put to death the fleshly appetites that pull us away from God.

His role as Intercessor is without parallel in any man-made religion. He acts from within us to the Father as the interpreter of our groans. It is not as though the Father does not know what our hearts are saying at a time of deep distress. That would make the Him less that God because there would be things He does not know. However, the Father and the Spirit are in such close communion that they interact on the most intimate level in their love for and participation in the lives of their people.

Not only does the Holy Spirit intercede for us but He does it in a way that communicates His feelings for us. He transfers our groans – the only way we can communicate the depth of our distress – to the Father with groans of His own. Our groans are the language of emotional pain which God knows and speaks and, in His compassionate love, answers.

“During that long period, the king of Egypt died. The Israelites groaned in their slavery and cried out, and their cry for help went up to God. God heard their groaning and He remembered His covenant with Abraham, with Isaac and with Jacob. So God looked on the Israelites and was concerned about them.” Exodus 2:23-25.

God always responds to our groans. They are sweet music in His ears because they tell Him that we need Him. As a Father, He wants to be wanted. Like little children who want to be independent, we try to fix the things we break.  In our foolish and immature independence, we make things worse until all we can do is groan and cry out to God for help.

The pathway to maturity for believers in Jesus, strangely enough, is not to become more independent but to become more helpless, like a new-born baby at its mother’s breast.

Acknowledgement

THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

 

The Spirit Of Sonship

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THE SPIRIT OF SONSHIP

“Therefore, brothers and sisters, we have an obligation – but it is not to the flesh, to live according to it. For if you live according to the flesh you will die but if, by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live. For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by Him we cry, ‘Abba, Father.’

“The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. Now, if we are children, then we are heirs – heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in His sufferings in order that we may also share in His glory.” Romans 8:12-17.

What magical words! We are no longer slaves but sons!

We have a Father who is a perfect Dad – not one who disappoints us, who abuses or neglects us or one constantly judges or punishes us because of our immature behaviour. And we have His Spirit who lives in us, who reassures us that we are God’s children and who enables us to call out to our Daddy, “Abba. Pappa!’ because that is who God is to us.

Jesus came to earth primarily to reveal the Father.

“I have brought you glory on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do…I have revealed you to those you gave me out of the world…” John 17:4; 6.

He patiently taught His disciples and showed them by His works the true nature of God as their heavenly Father. The first message He gave to Mary for His disciples after His resurrection was startling, to say the least!

“Jesus said, ‘Do not hold on to me for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.'” John 20:17.

The implications are huge! Not only have we been given the right to be called children of God, but we are also on the same level of sonship as Jesus is. Whatever privileges he enjoyed as God’s son are now ours because we is His brothers and sisters.

“In bringing many sons and daughters to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through suffering.

“Both the one who makes people holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters.” Hebrews 2:10, 11.

Wow! Imagine that! There is no God like our God. What grace that we should be called children of God, and even more than that, that Jesus is not ashamed to call us brothers and sisters! That means that God has the same love for us that He has for His Son. We enjoy the same status and privileges that Jesus enjoys. We have been raised with Him and seated with Him in the heavenly realms (Ephesians 2:6); we share His inheritance – His nature (2 Peter 1:3, 4) and we will reign with Him in His eternal kingdom.

“But aren’t you being presumptuous?” you ask. Certainly not if I am simply repeating what God’s word says.

But there is a condition. God’s grace has freed us from the penalty of our sin. He has removed our guilt and re-established us in His family as His sons and daughters. He has given us His Spirit as our Helper. “Now,” says Paul, “you have an obligation to live the life He has freed you to live. No more selfish indulging!”

If we do not respond to God’s grace by putting our sinful ways to death with the help of the Holy Spirit, we will perish just as surely as though we were never rescued and restored to our place in the family of God. Without the evidence of a changed heart and new life, what we claim is nothing but empty words.

Bottom line – only those who are led by the Spirit are the children of God. Are you one of God’s children?

Acknowledgement

THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.