Nine Fruits of the Spirit
Longsuffering teaches that you have a rare power of endurance which constantly whispers patience, known only to maturity of mind. You will easily be reminded that 9-4=5; and knowing fully well that 5 is grace, and that the greatest of all assurance strides forth from the grace of God. There is this knowledge that all is well! Having tasted and perfected longanimity, gentleness, which in Greek is ‘usefulness i.e. moral excellence’, your ability to perform the Adamic responsibility of Genesis 2:15 in Eden, “…to dress it and to keep it;” is never cumbersome because you have the mind of your Creator. The fruit of goodness further entrenches your character: for kindness is what everyone at one time or another will beg and crave for, rating your personality next to God, and the reason why is because your agathōsune ̄ touches them deeply inside.
Three to go reminds you of the truthful fact that you are walking with the very of very God; you are a man (number 6) after the heart of God! Faith has been generated in you when you bear it. It will never go unnoticed! A star, applauded, you are. Lucifer, this is what you lack: faith in Christ, the LORD. Faith says, “There are two more”: two which speaks of testimony and of witness turns you into a testifier of the goodness and the beneficence of Jehovah, a star to behold indeed! Like Job, an Old Testament faith wielder, you are able to make the declaration of, “I know my Redeemer liveth!” Faith fine-tunes you to act exactly like your Father in heaven. Why, how? It is because you have, with the spiritual eyes of faith, been constantly beholding God (Who does all by faith) even by your faith, and bringing you closer to 7 (perfection)! Amen! Meekness, in its bearing, leaves me with one more to bearing all.
One speaks of the unity of the Godhead, and the connotation of mergence with the most High, as one stoops in humility, like Jesus, to do the will of the Father. Moses was qualified by the spirit of meekness to receive divine appointment of the epoch making leadership of the Exodus. It takes meekness to jettison the philosophies of traditionalism and to the embrace of faith-driven tenets of scripture. To live a life of egkrateia becomes so easy because the trials of fitful temperaments have been conquered. Lack of self-control has become the bane of human success. At this stage one is fully in charge of one’s destiny. One knows when something is amiss and the solution to it. The Holy Spirit continually teaches you all things always.
Every born again child of God who does not portray the fruition of these nine produce of the Spirit is surely shooting himself in the leg to lag behind in our inevitable walk with Him, with Whom we all have to do. Satan has an indubitable access into every facet of our lives and to play his unrestricted, evil dominant roles. Also, God sometimes visits us circumstantially to enjoy the taste of His Divine produce inherent in His children. The nine tutorials prepares you be ‘up to par,’ as we intone in ‘Household of God Church’, pastored by the erudite Paul of Tarsus of our time, Rev. Chris Okotie. As a born again you win twice. You are inevitably a citizen of heaven immediately you go through the spiritual regeneration. Second, your labour of love, as God’s child, receives rewards. It is most definitely true that you start working for the Kingdom only when you are born again. Every good thing you have done before you get born again, no matter the level or degree of the sincerity of your heart, amounts to nothing in God’s Kingdom (Kingdom rule!) You cannot operate outside the influence and supervision of the Holy Spirit: HE takes a dwelling inside you immediately you are spiritually regenerated. The reason for the verity of Isaiah 64:6, “…and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags;” is because those (seemingly) good deeds are not Holy Spirit manned (Jesus with His finished work is alien to it). Christians, you do not have to embark on a tortuous days of fasting to bear these holy fruits, you inherently possess them in abundance of quantity.
The Bible records that Jesus expected to find a fruit on the fig tree to satiate His hunger for good works (please underline the word ‘expect’). In Mark 11:13, the verb ‘seeing’, eidō (i’-do) is: ‘to see (literally or figuratively); by implication (in the perfect only) to know’. It is an experiential knowledge. Fig tree represents Israel in scripture. Their Judaistic stance was incompatible both with scriptural reality and God’s emergent dispensational calendar. In this context, however, the tree covered itself with leaves which expresses fructification. God approached, having been seeing and to the knowing of an availability, to enjoy an expectation (when leaves show on a fig tree it indicates a sure availability of fruits on that fig tree). Jesus found unproductiveness. Was He deceived? No. The unfruitfulness of the lackadaisical attitude, justly acknowledged, did not receive a satisfying reward. The Bible intimates us with an impending loss in 1Corrinthians 3:15, “If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire.”
A gradual sanctification was commenced the very second you got born again, preparing you for trials of good works and your walk with the Most High. So, dear Christians, thou holy saints of Jesus what are you doing? No law, the Bible tells us, restricts anyone from performing these righteous exercise of the nine spiritual fruitfulness. You cannot say that these fruits do not abide in you. As a born again the Holy Spirit resides in you. Imagine if the richest man happens to be your friend and should decide to stay in your humble house and finds out that the food you serve is not rich enough all because you happen to be poor and if he should decide to be generous towards you, can you lament over poverty again if he should give you one hundred million US dollars? You have all it takes! Rise up and show the world that we are of the Most High, who will reward us accordingly. Blessed is the name of the Lord, who was, who is, and is to come!
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