When I was younger, I used to do kids rallies with walking on stilts, balloon twisting, and juggling. 30 years later, I have concluded that the stilt walking is over. I have also concluded the juggling is just a life reality.
We juggle all our lives, bills, jobs, family, and even things in our own spiritual life. One thing that was easier to juggle when I was younger was fruit, the round fruit especially. We still today juggle spiritual fruit.
Growing in the fruit of the Spirit can seem tiresome, exhausting, and mundane when we think of trying to grow in Christ, but it really isn't when we understand God started us off on the right path.
Gal 5:16 This I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.
Gal 5:17 For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh, and these are contrary, one to the other, so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.
Gal 5:18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.
If you are like me, sometimes walking and chewing gum can be a tough day. However, God has laid a simple plan out for you and me to walk in the spirit.
Man finds it normal to walk in these 17 spiritual things of the flesh.
Gal 5:19 Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness,
Gal 5:20 Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies,
Gal 5:21 Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.
Sin is man's nature, and the things of God sometimes have us fighting back because we aren’t ready for the spiritual fruit of God because we like the sin nature of man. However, a true saint of God will not like his failures and sins. They will struggle and stumble with what they do. However, God has taken care of us to start growing in the things of God to produce.
Gal 5:22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,
Gal 5:23 Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.
I believe God has set the fruit of the Spirit in order for our lives to start with love. The original word according to the Strongs concordance for love is agape, meaning
Agape is a term used in the New Testament to describe a selfless, sacrificial, unconditional love. It is the highest form of love, often associated with the love of God for humanity and the love that believers are called to have for one another. Agape is not based on emotions or feelings but is an act of the will, characterized by a commitment to the well-being of others. (Berean Strong's Lexicon)
Here is what I love about the fruit of the spirit: God has set these in order for us. You see, love is tough, especially since love is not based on our feelings and emotions. There are saints and aints who don’t, can't, or won’t love themselves because they don’t know how or can’t forgive themselves for the things they have done. You see, God's word says that he has given his love to us.
Many, and I purposely said many and not all because many of us know John 3:16:
John 3:16 For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life.
John 3:17 For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved.
We can say vs. John 3:16 by heart and the power behind it as we see the action and the power that God lays in front of us with this vs. the power to know there was only 1 way to bring back his creation (us) back to the Father. John 3:17 cannot be neglected here either! When we feel guilt for the sin and falling short, we want to go hide. We aren’t the only ones! Adam and Eve were the first to fall and hide from God. We are apparently in good company.
John 15:4 Jesus tells us to abide in him, to stay with him. He didn’t say love me; he said stay. The Greek word for "abide" in John 15:4 is men-o. In Strong's Greek Lexicon, μένω is a primary verb that means to stay, continue, dwell, endure, be present, remain, stand, or tarry. We stay for many reasons because we are waiting for something. Jesus is saying here that if you dwell, endure, and wait with me, I will be with you, and as we stay in the presence of Christ, he starts rubbing off on us. We start acting like him; we start accepting the changes in our lives because it is his love that we are waiting in.
Many years ago, I would wait for the drug dealer, the barmaid, or the opposite sex to get what I wanted. When I started waiting and dwelling with Christ, my life changed. I saw what happens to teenagers who have no love, and they start cutting, using drugs, and using sex as fillers, and they produce to others their hurt and pain. However, when we dwell with God, we are moving forward with the love God SUPPLIES for us until we can show, take, and give Agape love. God’s love never changes; it enhances our lives. We dwell in Christ; he dwells, he stays, he nurtures, and he develops love in us. God loves us so much that he gives us the love that we can’t even produce towards ourselves.
When we move into a relationship with God, and I mean, be real and wait, not by “I tried." Trying isn’t what grows us, but dwelling is what grows us. We need to understand when we abide, dwell, and stay whatever word you want to grasp onto; we are told then:
John 15:7 If ye abide in me and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.
Now once we grab a hold of the start of that love that God supplies, some wild things start happening, such as the next fruit, Joy, and Peace, and we will be talking about those in the next blog and how they interact and how we produce those for others. In John 17:7, the word says, When we are together and we are staying, and as you dwelled with God, you started to lay your trust in him without even realizing it. You even started to love yourself. Now that you love yourself, that love will produce because you are producing from what God gave you. Oh yes, you will still have struggles, and you may even hide 1 or 2 more times, but you will miss what God has instilled in you. John 3:16 He loved you so much his Son died to bring us, and John 3:17 says there is no condemnation but love for you.
Dwell in God, the Father; joy and peace will follow soon. Verse 7 says, …You shall ask what you will, and it shall be given to you. So dwell in him, and you will dwell in what he has, and you will produce love and even greater things to come.
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