Galatians 5:16-23 - We walk in the Spirit; it is not a work. The works of the flesh are all of these evil things… The flesh cannot work for God, it can only sin. Verse 17 tells us that the flesh and Spirit war against each other. It is the Spirit that fights the flesh. The Spirit must be the one who gains victory over the flesh, not our old man.
The fruit of the Spirit is singular. Christ is made these things in us. God has only given one gift to meet all our needs. God has only one answer to every need: Christ Jesus. Do you pray for wisdom? I Cor 1:30 Christ is our wisdom. Do you pray for love or peace or meekness? God will not give us meekness apart from Christ. It is Christ who is the answer to your need, not just one of His character qualities.
Anything you want to know about God, you must learn it through Jesus Christ. Do you want to know about God’s view of sin? Look to Jesus Christ on the cross. You want to know about God’s love? Look at Jesus Christ and the price he paid for all of us when we didn’t love him. You want to know about God’s wrath? Look to Christ. You want to see God’s mercy? Look to Christ. You want to see God’s power? Look to the resurrection of our Lord.
He is the fruit of the Spirit. Do you think you need more love? Do you think you need more Joy? More longsuffering? More gentleness? No, you need more of Christ. Jesus Christ is the fruit of the Spirit. He is what you need. All nine qualities come together with the Savior. The Holy Spirit doesn’t give us anything new. He only points us to our Lord and to what He has said and done already.
What is fruit? What is the purpose of fruit? To taste good? Fruit is good to eat, but it also contains a seed. The seed has life in it. Fruit gives more life, abundantly more. The fruit of the Spirit is the life of Christ, and that life must come out through us. That life will produce abundantly more of itself.
We are crucified in Him - Rom 6:6, we are quickened in Him - Eph 2:5-6, and we are complete in Him - Col 2:10
I Cor 1:30 - we are IN Christ Jesus
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Great post Jared! So true, that Christ is everything we need.
ReplyDeleteWe try so hard in our lives to develop the fruit of the Spirit don't we? We hear messages which give us points A, B, C, D, in order to live the Christian life. But the true way is the way of the cross. As we allow Christ to help us to die to ourselves as He died, then He can live through us because He is the resurrection and the life. It is all His work! We just need to stop resisting Him with our selfishness and independence. Stop focusing everything on ourselves. That just leads to more selfishness. Let Christ be all in all. As jared's blog is titled. "Jesus Only, Jesus Everything"
ReplyDeleteAMEN!!!