Today's Word

 

Having put a new spirit within us, even the Holy Spirit, is that the the end of our blessing? What should be the result of God’s Spirit living within us? Well, I think it is time and appropriate at the beginning of the New Year that we set ourselves some targets that having God’s Spirit living within us should be accomplished within our lives. To help us to do that, we will be re-visiting Galatians 5 vs 22-23, which detail “the fruit of the Spirit” and how we can produce that fruit in our lives.

I think the first thing to note is the ‘agricultural’ simile that Paul uses. He is in the orchard or vinery and looking at the plants growing and producing. So the first thought that came to me was the what the Lord said in John 15, “I am the vine, you are the branches”. He then goes on to tell us something that should be obvious to us but in practice that we have a great tendency to forget, the branch cannot produce fruit on its own, it has to be securely and completely attached to the vine. This tells me that our first objective to enable us to produce the fruit of the Spirit is to be securely and completely connected to our Saviour. That means yielding our will totally to His. 

In moments of spiritual elation, that desire becomes clear, but when we get back into day-to-day living, the desire becomes submerged and we make decisions that we never think about consulting God over. I’m not talking about what clothes to wear but rather what we say and do and even what we think. Everything in this area should be done as Jesus would have done/said or thought it. That is abiding in the vine and without that conscious and continual commitment, we will produce very little fruit as we find in Galatians 5.

Article written by Brian Preston, Elder @SFGH Church