THE FRUIT OF THE HOLY SPIRIT
(First part)
Memory verse (Gal5: 22-23) “ But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law ”.
When a man marries a wife and they begin to live together, people begin to expect them to produce children. When you put a seed in the ground you expect the seed to grow and bear fruits. Likewise, when the Holy Spirit is actively living and functioning in the life of a believer there is fruit as a result of that relationship and communion.
The scripture show what kind of fruit the Holy Spirit produces in our lives i.e. love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. One of the major works of the Holy Spirit in our lives is to produce the nature of God in us, i.e. the character of God or the likeness of God or the image of Christ. The Holy Spirit helps our lives to conform to the image of Christ (Rom8: 29). God created you to be like him and that is what redemption is all about, i.e. to restore the image of God in our lives that had been lost through the fall of man. Many religions try to teach their followers how they should do works that Jesus did. And by far so many religions are doing a lot of good works; charity acts, helping the poor, the orphans, the needy, helping the invalids in the society, feeding the hungry and all sorts of humanitarian activities. They are doing all they can to imitate Christ, they are trying all they can to please God. The image of God is not imitated but produced.
No good works can produce God’s image in our lives, it’s only the Holy Spirit that produces it. Many dear loved ones do things the other way round, we don’t do the good works to become Christian and God’s children, the scripture teaches that we first repent and our sins are forgiven, then we’re baptized in water, then baptized in the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit activity in our lives produces God’s attributes or image in us (Acts 2:38).
If you are a believer, you need to be baptized in the Holy Spirit and after that you need to have active and dynamic communion with the Holy Spirit and then the fruit of the Spirit will be produced in you. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen. (2Cor13: 14). It’s the communion with the Holy Spirit with your spirit that produces the fruit of the Holy Spirit in you.
Tomorrow’s subject: “ The fruit of love ”
