The Holy One calls to me this morning. With a severe winter storm behind me and the last vestiges of the snow melting away, I can now assess my own preparedness or actually the lack thereof and begin to make corrections needed for a better weathering of any future storms.
His gentle voice delivers a directive, "Check your fruit" and I know instantly what He means. I realize the trials of life are learning opportunities that the Holy Spirit wants to use to hone me into the image and character of my Lord Jesus the Christ.
Just like the storm emphasized the need for an emergency heat source if and when the power goes out, the trials of life can reveal places within my heart that are needing some form of corrective action before the next storm hits. I have long understood for myself that to walk with the Lord is to see things through His eyes and from His perspective.
When Jesus said, "without Me you can do nothing" in John 15:5, it does not mean that I cannot react in my flesh or that I cannot follow my own agenda. What it does mean to me is that without and apart from Him and the ruling authority of His Holy Spirit, I can do nothing that will survive the test of fire in the last day judgment of our "works".
It is easy to forget that reward will be given not for the "good" things we might find to do but rather the reward will come from our obedience as a servant for executing the Master's will. He may ask us to simply wash another person's feet but instead we decide to show our "loyalty" to Him by marching for a "good" cause. We may get some notoriety here but lose our eternal reward there.
It is this struggle to discern and follow the internal voice of our Shepherd that makes for the sanctification process. In this passage of scripture from John 15, Jesus was speaking to our faith life that He described as our being a branch in the Vine. He is the Vine and we are the branches and our faith life comes from and is sustained by Him. He goes on to say that we did not choose Him but He chose us to go and bear fruit. The fruit we are to bear is the fruit of the Holy Spirit as described in Gal 5:22: Love, Joy, peace, patience or long suffering, kindness, gentleness, faith and self control.
The trials we experience provide the heat that exposes the dross or impurities in our spirit. The human spirit must yield to the ruling authority of the Holy Spirit, and as we do, we are brought into the conforming image of our Savior and Lord Jesus Christ.
Since the "fruit" of the Spirit is actually the character of God we can use that as our standard of success in the assessment of victory or defeat in any given trial. I have come to realize that each trial I encounter challenges one or more of the character qualities of my Lord. The trial seems to challenge the "fruit" that the Lord is wanting me to bear.
If I ask myself what fruit of the Spirit is most challenged by the situation I am in, I can work with my Lord to bear that fruit rather than follow the flesh incitement to violate the Holy One within. What we face in life will always be in some sense more than we can comfortably bear. But in the eternal sense, that is the point behind the trial. The Lord filters things through His Sovereign fingers of love that brings us to understand our human dependency on Him. Simply put, we need our Lord.
If we are ultimately going to be entrusted with co-managing the Creator's worlds beyond this one, then this dependency is part of the training process for eternity. Leadership is honed in service and obedience is required before authority is given.
Our life and existence beyond the veil we call death in this realm, is promised to the Believer in Christ Jesus to be a life more amazing than we can think or imagine. With evil and death destroyed, what is left is goodness and life and describes what we can look forward to after leaving this temporal training ground behind.
Today I purpose to look at what the trial is challenging to the fruit of the Spirit.
Is (unconditional) love being challenged? Is joy being challenged? Is peace? Is patience? Is kindness? How about faith or simply self control? What flesh reaction, comes bubbling up from the heat of the situation? Hate, even self loathing? Bitterness, angry conflict, impatience, a mean spirit or retaliation or faithless unbelief?
As the Holy Spirit was sent to lead us into all truth, we can expect and trust Him to show us our weakness and failures. But in a most amazing and gracious way, once revealed, and as we ask Him for help, He will also cleanse us of the carnal iniquity and then empower us to bear His fruit and live out the righteousness of our Lord Jesus Christ.
The helplessness we may feel is designed to lead us to the Rock that is higher than any one of us. Jesus never leaves us like He found us and we are all in a transformation process.
The last storm revealed a weakness that now I can fix. When the next storm hits I will be better able to weather it in a more prepared way. So it is with the trials of life and the God ordained purpose that is preparing us for victories here and unimaginable wonders in eternity to come.
Today I will check my fruit and allow the Holy Spirit to show me what I need to correct so that next time a crisis hits I will be better prepared to handle it in a Christ glorifying way.
The Spirit is calling. Can you hear Him?
His gentle voice delivers a directive, "Check your fruit" and I know instantly what He means. I realize the trials of life are learning opportunities that the Holy Spirit wants to use to hone me into the image and character of my Lord Jesus the Christ.
Just like the storm emphasized the need for an emergency heat source if and when the power goes out, the trials of life can reveal places within my heart that are needing some form of corrective action before the next storm hits. I have long understood for myself that to walk with the Lord is to see things through His eyes and from His perspective.
When Jesus said, "without Me you can do nothing" in John 15:5, it does not mean that I cannot react in my flesh or that I cannot follow my own agenda. What it does mean to me is that without and apart from Him and the ruling authority of His Holy Spirit, I can do nothing that will survive the test of fire in the last day judgment of our "works".
It is easy to forget that reward will be given not for the "good" things we might find to do but rather the reward will come from our obedience as a servant for executing the Master's will. He may ask us to simply wash another person's feet but instead we decide to show our "loyalty" to Him by marching for a "good" cause. We may get some notoriety here but lose our eternal reward there.
It is this struggle to discern and follow the internal voice of our Shepherd that makes for the sanctification process. In this passage of scripture from John 15, Jesus was speaking to our faith life that He described as our being a branch in the Vine. He is the Vine and we are the branches and our faith life comes from and is sustained by Him. He goes on to say that we did not choose Him but He chose us to go and bear fruit. The fruit we are to bear is the fruit of the Holy Spirit as described in Gal 5:22: Love, Joy, peace, patience or long suffering, kindness, gentleness, faith and self control.
The trials we experience provide the heat that exposes the dross or impurities in our spirit. The human spirit must yield to the ruling authority of the Holy Spirit, and as we do, we are brought into the conforming image of our Savior and Lord Jesus Christ.
Since the "fruit" of the Spirit is actually the character of God we can use that as our standard of success in the assessment of victory or defeat in any given trial. I have come to realize that each trial I encounter challenges one or more of the character qualities of my Lord. The trial seems to challenge the "fruit" that the Lord is wanting me to bear.
If I ask myself what fruit of the Spirit is most challenged by the situation I am in, I can work with my Lord to bear that fruit rather than follow the flesh incitement to violate the Holy One within. What we face in life will always be in some sense more than we can comfortably bear. But in the eternal sense, that is the point behind the trial. The Lord filters things through His Sovereign fingers of love that brings us to understand our human dependency on Him. Simply put, we need our Lord.
If we are ultimately going to be entrusted with co-managing the Creator's worlds beyond this one, then this dependency is part of the training process for eternity. Leadership is honed in service and obedience is required before authority is given.
Our life and existence beyond the veil we call death in this realm, is promised to the Believer in Christ Jesus to be a life more amazing than we can think or imagine. With evil and death destroyed, what is left is goodness and life and describes what we can look forward to after leaving this temporal training ground behind.
Today I purpose to look at what the trial is challenging to the fruit of the Spirit.
Is (unconditional) love being challenged? Is joy being challenged? Is peace? Is patience? Is kindness? How about faith or simply self control? What flesh reaction, comes bubbling up from the heat of the situation? Hate, even self loathing? Bitterness, angry conflict, impatience, a mean spirit or retaliation or faithless unbelief?
As the Holy Spirit was sent to lead us into all truth, we can expect and trust Him to show us our weakness and failures. But in a most amazing and gracious way, once revealed, and as we ask Him for help, He will also cleanse us of the carnal iniquity and then empower us to bear His fruit and live out the righteousness of our Lord Jesus Christ.
The helplessness we may feel is designed to lead us to the Rock that is higher than any one of us. Jesus never leaves us like He found us and we are all in a transformation process.
The last storm revealed a weakness that now I can fix. When the next storm hits I will be better able to weather it in a more prepared way. So it is with the trials of life and the God ordained purpose that is preparing us for victories here and unimaginable wonders in eternity to come.
Today I will check my fruit and allow the Holy Spirit to show me what I need to correct so that next time a crisis hits I will be better prepared to handle it in a Christ glorifying way.
The Spirit is calling. Can you hear Him?
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