Friday, November 14, 2014

Fruit of the Spirit (10)

This is already part 10 in the series on the Fruit of the Holy Spirit, as described in Galatians 5:22-23. It is very interesting what precedes these verses:  What human nature does is quite plain. It shows itself in immoral, filthy, and indecent actions; in worship of idols and witchcraft. People become enemies and they fight; they become jealous, angry, and ambitious. They separate into parties and groups; they are envious, get drunk, have orgies, and do other things like these...

Ouch! I am sure we can all recognize some of this happening around us. Thank God, the word doesn't stop there... But the Spirit produces love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, humility, and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23).

In the last part of this blog series we will take a closer look at self-control or, as the KJV says, temperance. Nowadays that is probably a word which will make people laugh or frown. Let's be honest: in the Western world we live in a time and culture of abundance. Eating a whole bag of potato chips or half a box of chocolates, purchasing fashionable purse number twenty, browsing the internet for hours and hours at the time, drinking too much, wasting precious time in front of the television etc. etc. Too much, too much, too much.

Self-control, temperance... not our strongest point. The more we try, the more we fail. And that is exactly why God wants to help us. Without self-control we are weak and an easy target for the enemy. Proverbs 25:28 says: Like a city whose walls are broken through is a person who lacks self-control.

The self-control the Holy Spirit wants to produce in us is not the kind of effort we sometimes undertake, as in 'I can do it if I want to' or 'just a little longer and I made it'. It is self-control at the most unexpected moments. Right when we think we can NOT do it, the Spirit wants to come alongside to help. We can simply ask Him to do so!
Less of our own will, more of His!