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The Promise KeepersEveryday there are many promises that people make to each other, promises like: “I promise I will be home by 8pm.” “I promise I will be there to help you.” “I promise your next on the list to get promoted.” “I promise to love you in sickness and in health, for richer for poorer, till death do us part.”

Promises. In the world we live in there are often promises that are made and not kept, that’s a reality of life isn’t it?

Can you think of a promise you have not kept this week? Did you have a good reason for not keeping it?

Thankfully, there are some people in this world who do keep their promises. They may be hard to find, there may not be as many as there should be, but they do exist. As Christians we should be people who are Promise Keepers. In this session we are going to focus on the Greatest Promise Keeper we can ever know.

Solid foundationsOur Faith and Trust in God is on solid Ground with God, because He always keeps His promises, He never Fails, He’s never late and He’s always right where we need Him to be!

As Christians in the 21st Century, living in our community, living in the world, we need to understand and experience the reality of one of God’s greatest promises to us - The Holy Spirit.

The promise of the infilling, the promise of walking step by step with, the place where we receive the power to live a holy life, comes from receiving the promise of the Holy Spirit.

We are going to look at:

n The Promise of the Holy Spirit’s Presence in your life.

n The Promise of the Holy Spirit’s Purpose, and

n The Promise of the Holy Spirit’s Provision.

The Holy Spirit is God’s Supernatural gift to make the new person we have become alive and real. The Holy Spirit is at the heart and soul of the Christian faith and the enabler of a victorious Christian life.

The Holy Spirit is necessary to make sure that knowledge about God is transformed into an experience with God.

Lets start our study by looking at one of the foundational New Testament passages for understanding the Promise and the Person and the work of the Holy Spirit.

Living the Promises of God Session 2 18 January 2011

There may be times when you find it difficult to reconcile God’s truth to your own opinion or worldview, God’s truth is eternal, it does not change, our understanding of the truth does change as we allow God to work in our hearts and minds.

These sessions are not about opinion, they are about learning truth, the truth contained in the Bible, together we are going to focus on how we apply God’s truth, black & white in a grey world. To set godly priorities, grow in Christian character and live according to God’s standards so that we are a living witness to others. Notes from previous sessions are available from the Bible Study Section of www.ashingdonelim.co.uk.

Faith Service Worship Vision

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This Person would be with them as Jesus had been with them for comfort, strength, and guidance, but this Person would also be IN them. Jesus wanted the disciples to know He was going to send them a Somebody, not a something.

How do we know the Holy Spirit is a Person instead of just a force or an “it”?

Because He bears all the attributes of personality: intellect, emotion, and will. The Holy Spirit’s intellect is demonstrated by the fact that there are things He knows with His mind. Romans 8:26-27 says, “26 In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. 27 And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.”

Also the Holy Spirit’s emotions or feelings are seen in the fact that He can be grieved. Ephesians 4:30, “And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.”

His will is seen in the fact that He acts with intentionality or purpose: 1 Corinthians 12:11 “All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and He gives them to each one, just as He determines.”

It’s important to understand that the Holy Spirit is not an “it”, but a real person.

The Bible uses personal pronouns for the Holy Spirit. Jesus referred to the Spirit as “He”. The Spirit refers to Himself in the first person and also speaks His thoughts intelligibly to others, something only a person can do. Acts 13:2, While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.”

When God saves us, then, He calls us into a personal relationship with the Holy Spirit. In fact, God wants us to enter into intimate communion with the Spirit’s Person. It is for this reason we are not to sin against the Holy Spirit.

One of our fundamental problems is that we can look for the wrong thing first when it comes to the Holy Spirit.

People often talk about their need for Holy Spirit power, and we do need Holy Spirit power, but how much more should we seek a real personal living relationship with the Holy Spirit?

When we deal with the Holy Spirit as a power first, then you are always looking for the power and you just may miss the Person. Many people come to church on a Sunday morning looking for a jump-start from the Holy Spirit to get their engine running and carry them through the week. They leave church with the motor revving, and often grind to a halt somewhere during the week.

A person who only seeks a momentary experience of Holy Spirit power without building a relationship with the Holy Spirit lacks spiritual maturity.

The Promise of Presence“15If you love me, you will obey what I command. 16

And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Counsellor to be with you forever-- 17 the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. 18 I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. 19 Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. 20 On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. 21 Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him.” (John 14:15-21)

This is part of the conversation that Jesus had with His disciples in the Upper Room, on the night of the Last Supper and the night of his Betrayal. It was here He promised His followers that God the Father would send them “another Counsellor or Helper.”

This was probably not one of the greatest moments in the lives of the disciples. This was what you could call a spiritual downtime. Everything was going wrong. Judas had shown himself to be a traitor and had just left the room on his way to betray Christ. More than that, Peter had just been told that within the next 24 hours he was going to publicly deny Christ, (John 13:38). And the Jews wanted to get rid of Christ and all His followers, so the disciples had reason to be afraid.

Then came the worst blow. Jesus told them, “I am going to go away to prepare a place for you. You can’t come to Me until I come for you. I am not going to tell you when I will come for you, but trust Me.” (John 14:1-3)

Thomas reacted right away. “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?” (John 14:5)

So this is the tension filled, late night environment in the upper room in Jerusalem that night, when Jesus introduced His disciples to the ministry of the Third Person of the Trinity: 16 And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Counselor to be with you forever-- 17 the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept Him, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him. But you know Him, for He lives with you and will be in you.

The Holy Spirit lives in all believers, but do you experience specific times when you are more conscious that He is at home?

The truth is that we are never alone. As a Christian you have a personal friend, a Counsellor, the Spirit of Truth that will never leave you, nor forsake, what a Great Promise.

A few things we need to understand about the Holy Spirit.Jesus assured His followers that night that even though He would leave, they would not be left alone. There would be another Divine Person who would take His place.

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The Holy Spirit is a Person we can know and relate to, not a force or power to be used.

How should we live a minute by minute relationship with God through the Holy Spirit?

We need to understand the truth that a real relationship requires more commitment from us than an hour or two on a Sunday. This relationship is so vital, it’s so important to our spiritual health that it must be entered into every day, a personal walk with a friend.

Are you permanently plugged into your Spiritual source of Power, are you being refreshed daily by His presence in your life?

It’s about relationship not religionThere are many people who have been saved, who are striving to live a good Christian life, but somewhere, somehow they never draw on the power of the Holy Spirit, and their Christian experience is dry and shallow. For them the Christian life consists of a bunch of things to do, it’s become a religion to practice, instead of a relationship to live in and to enjoy.

Why do some people find religion easier than a relationship with God?

One of Satan’s favourite tricks is to leave us in church, but lead us away from relationship and lead us to be comfortable in religion. If Satan can get us to practice religion and ignore personal relationship with God through the Holy Spirit then he has succeeded in tricking us.

There’s Power in the Christian Life but it’s Found in the Person in the very Spirit of God who has been given to us as a friend, as a counsellor, as a Helper.

Do you need to ask God to enable you to be in the right relationship with the Holy Spirit so that you can live your Christian life the way God intended, moment by moment, with a friend walking beside you?

The Promise of Purpose“Now I am going to Him who sent me, yet none of you asks me, `Where are you going?’ 6 Because I have said these things, you are filled with grief. 7 But I tell you the truth: It is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you. 8 When He comes, He will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment: 9 in regard to sin, because men do not believe in me; 10 in regard to righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer; 11 and in regard to judgment, because the prince of this world now stands condemned. 12 “I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. 13 But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on His own; He will speak only what He hears, and He will tell you what is yet to come. 14 He will bring glory

to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you. 15 All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will take from what is mine and make it known to you.” (John 16:5-16:15)

A young boy was at Disneyland enjoying Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, the rides, the popcorn and the music and he didn’t notice that he had become separated from his parents. He was so busy enjoying the hustle and bustle of Disney life until he looked up and discovered that his parents were not there.

Once this boy discovered he was not in fellowship with his parents anymore, Disneyland turned into a Disney disaster. The sweets did not seem so sweet, the rides were no longer fun, and Mickey Mouse was no longer cute, because Mum and Dad were nowhere to be seen.

One of the great tragedies today is that people are so busy enjoying the rides, the thrills and the bright lights that they haven’t even noticed they are not in fellowship with God. They are so busy feasting on what seems to be sweet, riding the Ferris wheel of entertainment, and going up and down the roller coaster of pleasure that they haven’t even noticed God is not in the vicinity anymore.

What two things did the young boy at Disneyland need to understand before he could get help? First, he needed to discover he was lost. And second, he needed somebody to lead him back to his parents.

The Bible declares that, apart from God, all people are eternally lost. They are forever separated from the life of God. They need to know they are lost, and they need to know the way back home. This is where the Promised Holy Spirit enters. He is the Champion of the lost and found. His unique task is to bring men and women to Jesus Christ; to bring the lost into a saving relationship with Christ and to keep the saved in constant fellowship with Christ.

The Holy Spirit is the Great ConvicterHave you found this to be true in your Christian experience?

John 16:8 speaks about this purpose of conviction, “When He comes, He will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment:”

The key word is convict. This conviction is synonymous with the word convincing. The job of the Holy Spirit is to make absolutely clear the spiritual issues of life and to call for a decision.

How often do you pray for a lost loved one or friend?

We should be praying for them and we also need to pray that the Holy Spirit would go and perform what He has been given to us to do, to bring conviction and conversion in the lives of our loved ones and friends.

The reason your here today, the reason your a Christian today is because the Holy Spirit did His job. He was faithful, He convicted you and allowed you to see your need to be saved.

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The truth is unsaved people walk around in a spiritual fog or daze, not really understanding what God expects from them. You hear it every time you talk to an unbeliever. Ask someone who is not in relationship with God the question “Are you going to Heaven?” The answer will probably be, “Well, I hope so. I think so.” When you ask him/her what she is pinning her hopes for heaven on, they may tell you, “I try to keep the 10 commandments. I go to church. I’m doing the best that I can.” It becomes very clear that they are in a spiritual fog.

The Holy Spirits job is to make the issue clear and to jar people loose of their misconceptions about the good news of the Gospel. But in order to do this, He must get their attention, He has to break through that fog that blinds the unsaved.

The Word teaches us that He will convict in three important areas; In the area of Sin, in the area of Righteousness, and in the area of Judgement.

We understand how He convicts us and that we are in need of forgiveness because of the conviction that the Holy Spirit brings.

In the area of Righteousness, it’s the Holy Spirit’s Job to convince people that Jesus Christ is the only perfect Righteous One who has ever lived, the only One who has perfectly measured up to God’s Holy Standard. This sets Jesus apart from all other so-called Messiahs.

You can go anywhere and find a self-appointed messiah, so the Question is what makes Jesus the real Messiah? What makes Him the Righteous One? What sets Him apart?

Jesus answered this Himself in John 16:10 when He said, “in regard to righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer.”

It is the resurrection and ascension of Christ that puts Jesus Christ in a class by himself. Muhammad talked a lot, but when he died, no one ever saw him again. Buddha looked very comfortable, but when he died nobody could locate him again. Confucius had many wise and creative sayings, but when he went to the grave nobody could hear from him again. But Jesus died on Friday and got up on Sunday and showed himself alive to more than 500 people.

What sets Jesus apart is the empty tomb. Jesus Christ has beaten death and through Him we can meet the Righteous Standard of God. The Holy Spirit convicts us that Jesus Christ is the Righteous One, so in turn we need to heed what Jesus has said, and still says today too us.

The Holy Spirit’s Promise is to help us experience the Spirit’s Power.If you have ever experienced an electrical power failure then you will realised how much you benefit from an invisible resource called electricity. Electricity has power within itself. Shove a screwdriver in one of your homes electrical sockets and you will become one of the lights in your home!

We can see visibly what this invisible power resource does for us, it cools and cooks our food. It can freeze water and make bread pop out of a toaster. When it’s dark the lights come on, all because we have available to us an invisible power.

Why is wind a good analogy for the Holy Spirit?

Wind has a life of it’s own. Sometimes it is gentle and still and we hardly know it exists. At other times it blows so viciously that nothing can withstand it’s power. So when Jesus was likening the Holy Spirit to wind, Jesus was speaking of a Person with enormous power.

But the invisible, available power we have in our homes is nothing compared to the power that all of us who know Jesus Christ have in our lives in the Person of the Holy Spirit. He is the invisible presence and power of God. He is God. The Spirit is deposited in the life of every believer at the moment of salvation. As Christians we have Royalty living within us, the indwelling Holy Spirit. Acts 1:8 tells us about the Power of the Holy Spirit and how it will enable us to carry out God’s Mission, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

The clear teaching here is that the disciples would not have power until the Spirit came. This power is not simply a concept for you to understand, but it is a reality that you need to experience. We cannot talk about spiritual power without talking about the Holy Spirit who is the source of that power.

The Holy Spirit provides the Christian with a Powerful Presence. In Acts 1:4 Jesus commanded the disciples not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for what the Father had promised, and then in verse five Jesus repeated the promise of the Holy Spirit’s coming saying, “You shall be baptised with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”

In other words, there’s no way for you to accomplish the Kingdom work that I’ve created you to do without the infilling power of the Holy Spirit. In John 14:18 Jesus promised, “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.” Jesus said He will come. Jesus comes to us through the Holy Spirit.

How do you feel about having the Spirit of God living inside you?

If we have the Holy Spirit living in us, do we have a closer relationship with Jesus than the first disciples had?

Jesus lived among his disciples for more than three years, but He is with you right now in the Person of the Holy Spirit. Jesus is here. If you want to be close to Christ, you must walk step by step, day by day, minute by minute with His Holy Spirit. God has called us to be a Powerful People, being led by His Powerful Presence.

The disciples were a weak group of men. Peter denied Jesus. The other disciples left Him because of fear.

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They ran until the Spirit came. They received the Holy Ghost power, and it made the Holy Spirit difference in their lives. Receiving this power has nothing to do with your education, or lack there of, you can have all the training in the world and still be a defeated Christian. But if you have been with Jesus, somebody else is going to know it. If you have been with Jesus, it’s going to be evident that something powerful is at work in you.

People often spend a lot of time trying to change their personalities, trying to fix themselves. But the Bible says when the Spirit took over the apostles, there was a personality change. All of the sudden these weak Christians stood up and spoke up for Christ. The Holy Spirit will change you, your personality if He can get hold of you.

If we don’t have a real relationship with the Holy Spirit, we will feel like defeated spiritual wimps, always seeking an experience, looking to the next conference or program, or latest book, to see if it can do for us what only the Holy Spirit can do.

The Holy Spirit can make the insecure person secure, the fearful person confident. Personality change is his speciality, But He only does it if you are doing kingdom work. He is not going to do it so you can win a personality or popularity contest. But when the Spirit goes to work in your life, things change.

In the film Crocodile Dundee, there is a scene in which Dundee, a guy from Austrialia is walking down the street in New York with his girlfriend. Some guys jump out to rob them, and one guy pulls a knife and says, “Give me your money.”

Dundee’s girl screams, “Oh, he has a knife.” But Dundee isn’t impressed much with the knife. He says, “That’s not a knife.” Dundee reaches behind him and pulls this huge knife out of his belt and says, “This is a knife.” The thief looks at Dundee’s knife and takes off.

What would normally bring fear did not bring fear to Crocodile Dundee, because he had something bigger and better working on his side.

We have someOne, bigger and better working on the inside. God does not want you to be intimidated out of being the person He has saved you to be. If you are doing the powerful Kingdom work God has called you to do and you have the powerful presence of the Holy Spirit, you are a spiritually powerful person.

Many Christians are not engaging the Power in their life then wondering why their Christian experience is so dull or dead, it’s not because the Spirit is lacking anything, it’s because we are not allowing the Holy Spirit total control of our lives and living in communion with Him.

Too many times we try to get somewhere by using the Spirit’s power only when we feel like it or when we are in trouble. But it doesn’t work that way. If you are going to experience the benefits of the Holy Spirit’s power, He must have more of you. You don’t need more of Him. He’s already enough.

The key to enjoying the Spirit’s power is obedience. This is why Jesus told His disciples that their love for Him would be measured by their obedience. When we obey, the Holy Spirit empowers, because through obedience we join with the Spirit’s agenda of glorifying Christ. He is available to make you all He wants you to be, but only as you obey.

Do you need to ask the Holy Spirit to convict you of any area that your not being obedient? Are there areas of disobedience? Pray and ask God to forgive you for this disobedience and ask the Holy Spirit to empower you to overcome that failure and to help you moment by moment to be sensitive to Him.

The Promise of ProvisionWhat does the Holy Spirit wants to provide to you in your relationship with Him?

“The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. 24 Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires. 25 Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. 26 Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.” (Galatians 5:22-5:26)

Have you ever picked fruit off of a fruit tree? How did you know what kind of tree it was? We can know a Tree by what kind of fruit it produces.

There is a promise of the Fruit of the Spirit that the Holy Spirit produces in our lives as a growing Christian, and how we can know each other by what is being produced in our lives.

Why is it that not everyone who calls themselves Christian is producing Fruit of the Spirit? It’s available to every Christian, but there’s nothing automatic about the Spirit’s ministry. Every believer is baptised by the Holy Spirit into the body of Christ, and every believer has the Holy Spirit indwelling presence, but neither of these guarantees that we will experience all the Spirit’s benefits.

Why is it so important that we submit to the Holy Spirit? The believers in Galatians were trying to live the life of the Holy Spirit in the energy of the flesh, on their own power, and Paul was astounded, listen to what he says in Galatians 3:1,3 “You foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified? Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?”

Why was Paul so upset? The Galatians were being tempted to substitute rules for a dynamic relationship with the Holy Spirit. This idea is still with us today. We have all met Christians who have a list of rules for us to follow if we want to be victorious, the Christian life does include rules. There are definite do’s and don’ts. But the power for victorious Christian living is not in the rules. It’s in the Spirit.

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Paul clarifies how it works in Galatians 5: 16-18;“So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. 17 For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law.”

Living in a War ZonePaul is telling us that we live in a War Zone. This zone consists of two opposing realities; your flesh, the old man, and the indwelling Holy Spirit.

When you came to Christ, the Spirit of God came to take up residence in your life and gave you a new nature. He placed your new nature in the old house of your flesh-- and your old self, this old house does not take kindly to the Holy Spirit moving in, He wants to make too many changes to the old house, one thing we realise about our Old Flesh, it likes keeping things the same as they’ve always been, it’s more comfortable.

What we need to understand is that battle that takes place, in this War Zone needs to be won.

Are you willing to die to the old way of life and allow the Holy Spirit to have complete control?

“What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? 2 By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? 3 Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptised into Christ Jesus were baptised into His death? 4 We were therefore buried with Him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. 5 If we have been united with Him like this in His death, we will certainly also be united with Him in His resurrection. 6 For we know that our old self was crucified with Him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin-- 7 because anyone who has died has been freed from sin.” (Romans 6:1-7)

“Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. 6 The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace; 7

the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. 8 Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God. 9 You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. 10 But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. 11

And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.” (Romans 8:5-11)

God through the Death and Resurrection of His Son, Jesus Christ has given us through the promised Holy Spirit the power to Live a Holy Life, a Spirit led life, a life not ruled by rules and regulations, but a life ruled by a relationship with the One who makes us an overcomer.

The apostle Paul has been trying to show the Galatians that no amount of Law-Keeping, which is really their own effort to live a Holy life will do the job. The Law is good and necessary because we are rebellious by nature. The Law given to Moses, which is the revelation of God’s perfect standard, was given to show us how sinful we are and how far short we fall of God’s demands.

No police officer is ever going to pull you over, come up to the drivers window, and say, “I couldn’t help but notice on my radar that you were driving at the speed limit. So I just wanted to pull you over and let you know how blessed the Rochford police department is to have a law abiding citizen like you. Here, let me write you a thank you ticket.”

That’s not going to happen is it? The law is not there to congratulate you for obeying the law. It’s there to catch you when you exceed the speed limit. It’s there to condemn you, because that is what law does.

The problem with the law is that it doesn’t give you the power to obey it. I won’t ask how many obey the speed limit. The law can give you guidelines and punish you when you have broken them, but the law can’t make you obey.

That’s why, if you try to live the Christian life by keeping a list of rules in the power of your flesh, you are doomed to failure and misery. All the law can do is condemn.

Paul tells us the answer to this is to let the Holy Spirit take over in your life, then you are going to be pleasing God because you want to, not because you have to. When the Holy Spirit takes over, we don’t function by law, we function on Relationship.

When we are living our Christian Life in tune with the Holy Spirit, when we are in Obediance with the Holy Spirit, something awesome takes place. The Holy Spirit begins to produce Fruit in our lives. Just as the deeds of the flesh are evident, so are the fruit of the Spirit.

Fruit is VisibleFruit is always visible. Watch out for that tree in your garden that is giving you invisible fruit. When fruit is ripe and ready, you know it.

How can you say that you are walking in the Spirit in your heart, or that you are full of the Spirit in your heart, if nothing is evident in your life but the works of the flesh? Jesus said that we can tell false prophets by the fruit they produce. The same is true for believers. When we are walking in the Spirit, others will know it.

Fruit is RecognisableFruit always reflects the character of the tree or vine that is bearing it. Jesus said in Matthew 7, “Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes, nor figs from thistles.”

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Apple trees produce apples, orange trees produce oranges, and so on. The Fruit that comes from a life controlled by the Holy Spirit will reflect the character of Jesus Christ.

What fruit do people see in your life?

There’s no use acting like your a Orange tree if your producing something else. God gives us discernment to know what kind of fruit people are producing in their lives.

Fruit is for OthersFruit is always borne for the benefit of others. The seed in a fruit is designed for reproduction. So as you bear the fruit of the Spirit, others not only enjoy the “taste” of your life, but also the seeds of spiritual growth are planted in their lives. Fruit is always meant for someone else’s enjoyment.

You never see fruit chewing on itself, do you? In fact, fruit that only exists for itself gets rotten. Suppose an apple begins to go bad and says, “I don’t want to be picked. I don’t even want to be touched, let alone eaten. Just let me hang here on the tree.” That apple is going to rot, because one reason for fruit is so that somebody can take a bite.

The Holy Spirit wants to control us so that our families and friends can be around us and take a bite out of our lives and say, “that’s good.”

The Fruit of the Spirit is LoveGodly love is the ability to seek the highest good for another, regardless of that person’s response. The flesh says, “You aren’t being loving to me, so I’m not going to show you any love.” The Spirit says, “Even if you are not loving me, let me show you what real love looks like.” That’s the Holy Spirit.

The Fruit of the Spirit is JoyThe world can only offer you happiness, which is driven by circumstances. In other words, if you can show me a good time, I will be happy. But the joy of the Spirit has nothing to do with happiness. It has to do with a well of living water on the inside, not the circumstances on the outside. Joy is the overflow of the life of God within you. If you have an empty well within, you will have to go all over the place to find happiness. But if you have joy, you can turn a bad situation into a playground. Joy is inner stability regardless of external circumstances.

The Fruit of the Spirit is PeaceThe Holy Spirit can bring harmony where there is conflict. He can take two different personalities and cause them to live together in peace. He can take two factions that are at war and bring them together in harmony.

The fruit of the Spirit is PatienceThe quality that allows us to be “long-fused” instead of short tempered. It removes a vengeful spirit toward those who have wronged us.

The fruit of the Spirit is Kindness“Kindness” is thinking of ways you can help others, not ways you can hurt them.

The fruit of the Spirit is Goodness“Goodness” means deeds that benefit others, not deeds that destroy.

The fruit of the Spirit is Faithfulness “Faithfulness” is the ability to be consistent, not there one day and gone the next. It means we are dependable.

The fruit of the Spirit is Gentleness“Gentleness” or meekness is the ability to bring yourself under the control of another, the ability to submit to the will of God.

The fruit of the Spirit is Self-Control“Self-control” is the ability to say no to wrong and yes to right, no matter how tempting the wrong is.

The Promise of the Holy Spirit is yours to claimThere is so much promised to us, so much more the Spirit Provides for us Our challenge is to grow closer and more intimate in our relationship with the Holy Spirit.

He wants you to know Him and learn more about Who He is. The key to this Relationship is found in Galatians 5:25, “Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.”

To walk with the Spirit means that you actually going somewhere, there’s going to be growth. Walking also assumes continuous movement, you just keep going, if you fall down, you get up and keep walking. Walking also means dependance, putting your weight down on your legs one leg at a time.

Walking in the Spirit means you are depending on the Holy Spirit to hold you up, much of this walking starts with our Prayer life, so let’s get walking with the Spirit, let’s stay in step, and we do this through prayer and obedience.

We need a church full of Spirit-Filled, Fruit producing, Holy Living people that will influence and impact the people around them. Will you be one of these people?

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