The Holy
Spirit moves into our life at justification - when we repent of our sins and
ask Jesus to save us from the penalty of them. He brings with Him the power,
nature and fruit of God's character.
His
fantastic fruit will replace our carnal nature and make us a new creation
(Romans 6:22). However, the weeds of sin, the world and the devil will rob the
soil of our life and starve the spiritual fruit, preventing it from growing.
It is our
choice to allow or to hinder this from happening. Negative emotions will crowd
out His fruit by dominating our thoughts and preventing God's Word from
germinating (2 Timothy 3:2; Romans 1:30).
It seems to
be easier to grow the weeds of sin than the fruit of the Spirit; but as we
surrender our will and all of our human effort to God's Spirit, it becomes unpleasant
to sin and joyful to walk in holiness (1 John 2:17; 1 Corinthians 6:19-20).
We discover
that God's Spirit replaces hatred with love, discontentment with
peace, irritation with patience, criticism with gentleness, backbiting with
goodness, worry with faith, pride with meekness, and depression with true joy,
as we are controlled and guided by Him.
What do these fruit actually mean to our life and personality? His love
gives us affection for others; joy produces an exuberance in us for life; peace
conveys a deep abiding serenity; patience provides us with the willingness to
persevere.
Gentleness exudes compassion from our heart; goodness radiates kindness
which pervades our entire being; faith comes from experiencing God's
faithfulness; meekness makes us humble in our service to our King.
When God's Spirit guides us
each moment of the day, we have self-control in every circumstance (Galatians
5:22-23). It is a bit
overwhelming to think of changing all of these attitudes in our life at one
time.
Actually, the Holy Spirit changes us from one stage of glory to the next,
a little at a time, one degree at a time (2 Corinthians 3:18).
We end up
with a fruitastic personality; and we can share God's fruit throughout our
lifetime with everyone we will ever meet. We will develop into a wonderful
example of the love of God in an individual's life.
Prayer:
Father God, our old nature prevents Your fruit from growing in our
life. Help us to lay aside those negative emotions and character traits, which
so easily weigh us down and to allow Your Spirit to transform our life (Hebrews
12:1).
Thank You for helping us to focus on the positive viewpoint in Your Word
whenever negative thoughts assail us (Philippians 4:8). Help us to meditate on Your Word day and night as Your Spirit gives us
the mind of Christ to replace the negative attitudes which come from Satan, the
world and the flesh.
Show us the root of every negative thought, feeling and outlook,
so that we can surrender it to You immediately. This will prevent us from
adopting a negative, complaining, stressed, depressed or grouchy attitude.
Thank You for delivering us from our self.
Thought for the Day:
We can write verses pertaining to one fruit at a time and post them in
obvious places where we spend time: like the bathroom mirror or kitchen window
or refrigerator, or above our desk at work; so we can reread them daily as
God's Spirit transforms our life with them.
