Today’s devotion is from Galatians 5:22-23
But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, and self-control.
I have heard people say, “I don’t have any patience”, or “I have lost my joy and my peace”, or “I have no faith”. By saying those kind of things, people are speaking death over themselves. Having said that, it is impossible ‘in the natural’ to have all of the fruit of the spirit all of the time… notice, I said, “in the natural”. The good news is that we do not have to function and love ‘in the natural’ as born again believers under the New Covenant in Christ. We get to function in the supernatural by grace through faith and live and move and have our being by GRACE. In other words, we do what we do by the unmerited favor of God and by the power of God and by the ability of the Lord and not by our limited carnal ability.
You can have all of the fruit of the Spirit operating in your life all of the time as a believer under the New Covenant…
Let us take a little time and let Jesus teach us. Jesus said in John 15:1-5, “I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit. You are already clean because of the Word which I have spoken to you. Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.”
Our job is not to try to bear fruit in our own strength, our job as New Covenant believers is to abide in the vine. The Greek word for ‘abide’ is ‘ménō’, literally meaning, ‘to continue’. As we continue to press in to Jesus, as we continue in His Word, as we continue to declare and speak His Word, as we continue to worship, to pray and to stand in faith, as we continue to take shelter in Jesus, our secret place, as we continue to engage and to stay vibrantly connected to Him, His FRUIT will be borne through us. The fruit of the Holy Spirit in Christ will manifest through us because we are connected.
I am talking about purposely living by ‘now faith’ in Jesus… by purposely living by His Word by grace through faith, by placing our trust in Jesus as an act of our will… not by trying to bear fruit by our willpower, by placing our trust in Him as an act of our will.
When you make your confession, “Jesus, I live by your Word by the grace given to me, Jesus, I trust You, Jesus, I do this by the strength, the power and by the ability of the Holy Ghost, in Your mighty Name! Jesus, I abide in you by faith, Jesus, I continue in You by grace through faith, I continue to STAND on Your promises, I continue in Your Word, I live and move and have my being in You Jesus!” When you make that your continual confession, you will bear much fruit all of the time, regardless of circumstances - Selah