{"id":6540,"date":"2017-04-03T07:21:00","date_gmt":"2017-04-03T11:21:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.inthineheart.com\/staging\/8143\/?p=6540"},"modified":"2021-07-08T14:31:53","modified_gmt":"2021-07-08T18:31:53","slug":"the-fruit-of-the-spirit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.inthineheart.com\/staging\/8143\/2017\/04\/03\/the-fruit-of-the-spirit\/","title":{"rendered":"The Fruit of the Spirit"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong><em>&#8220;And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit;&#8221; Ephesians 5:18&nbsp;<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">To be filled with the Holy Spirit is not a suggestion for Christians but rather a command, as we see in the above verse. It was A.W. Tozer who said, &#8220;The Spirit-filled life is not a special, deluxe edition of Christianity. It is part and parcel of the total plan of God for His people.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">As with any duty of a Christian, in order to strive for the spirit-filled life,&nbsp;one must first get a better understanding of what God&#8217;s Word is speaking. Galatians 5:22,23 gives us a description of the fruit&nbsp;that will be present in&nbsp;a spirit-filled&nbsp;believer:<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong><em>&#8220;But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.&#8221;<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">As the girls and I&nbsp;talked about these verses&nbsp;the other day, we took a closer look at each virtue listed and then, I encouraged them to follow my example and copy&nbsp;the words down along with the comments that follow them.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong>love<em> &#8211; <\/em><\/strong>&#8220;to God especially, and to one another for his sake&#8221;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong>joy<em> &#8211; <\/em><\/strong>&#8220;by which may be understood cheerfulness in conversation with our friends, or rather a constant delight in God&#8221;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong>peace<em> &#8211; <\/em><\/strong>&#8220;with God and conscience, or a peaceableness of temper and behaviour towards others&#8221;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong>longsuffering<em> &#8211; <\/em><\/strong>&#8220;patience to defer anger, and a contentedness to bear injuries&#8221;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong>gentleness<em> &#8211; <\/em><\/strong>&#8220;such a sweetness of temper, and especially towards our inferiors, as disposes us to be affable and courteous, and easy to be entreated when any have wronged us&#8221;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong>goodness<em> &#8211; <\/em><\/strong>&#8220;(kindness, beneficence), which shows itself in a readiness to do good to all as we have opportunity&#8221;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong>faith<em><i> &#8211;<\/i>&nbsp;<\/em><\/strong>&#8220;fidelity, justice, and honesty, in what we profess and promise to others&#8221;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong>meekness<em> &#8211; <\/em><\/strong>&#8220;wherewith to govern our passions and resentments, so as not to be easily provoked, and, when we are so, to be soon pacified&#8221;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong>temperance<\/strong> &#8211; &#8220;in meat and drink, and other enjoyments of life, so as not to be excessive and immoderate in the use of them&#8221;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><em>(taken from Matthew Henry&#8217;s Whole Bible Commentary)&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The list is a lot to remember, isn&#8217;t it? But, if it is God&#8217;s&nbsp;will for us to be filled with the Holy Spirit then we can be assured that He will help us&#8230;if that is our heart&#8217;s desire.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit;&#8221; Ephesians 5:18&nbsp; To be filled with the Holy Spirit is not a suggestion for Christians but rather a command, as we see in the above verse. It was A.W. Tozer who said, &#8220;The Spirit-filled life is not a special, deluxe edition of Christianity. It is part and parcel of the total plan of God for His people.&#8221; As with any duty of a Christian, in order to strive for the spirit-filled life,&nbsp;one must first get a better understanding of what God&#8217;s Word is speaking. Galatians 5:22,23 gives us a description of the fruit&nbsp;that will be present in&nbsp;a spirit-filled&nbsp;believer: &#8220;But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.&#8221; As the girls and I&nbsp;talked about these verses&nbsp;the other day, we took a closer look at each virtue listed and then, I encouraged them to follow my example and copy&nbsp;the words down along with the comments that follow them. love &#8211; &#8220;to God especially, and to one another for his sake&#8221; joy &#8211; &#8220;by which may be understood cheerfulness in conversation with our friends, or rather a constant delight in God&#8221; peace &#8211; &#8220;with God and conscience, or a peaceableness of temper and behaviour towards others&#8221; longsuffering &#8211; &#8220;patience to defer anger, and a contentedness to bear injuries&#8221; gentleness &#8211; &#8220;such a sweetness of temper, and especially towards our inferiors, as disposes us to be affable and courteous, and easy to be entreated when any have wronged us&#8221; goodness &#8211; &#8220;(kindness, beneficence), which shows itself in a readiness to do good to all as we have opportunity&#8221; faith &#8211;&nbsp;&#8220;fidelity, justice, and honesty, in what we profess and promise to others&#8221; meekness &#8211; &#8220;wherewith to govern our passions and resentments, so as not to be easily provoked, and, when we are so, to be soon pacified&#8221; temperance &#8211; &#8220;in meat and drink, and other enjoyments of life, so as not to be excessive and immoderate in the use of them&#8221; (taken from Matthew Henry&#8217;s Whole Bible Commentary)&nbsp;&nbsp; The list is a lot to remember, isn&#8217;t it? But, if it is God&#8217;s&nbsp;will for us to be filled with the Holy Spirit then we can be assured that He will help us&#8230;if that is our heart&#8217;s desire.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3,17,29,23,7,56,43,40,76,46,48,24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6540","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faith","category-gods-will","category-gods-word","category-grace","category-growing","category-holiness","category-homeschooling","category-joy","category-love","category-patience","category-peace","category-quotes"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4o6C2-1Hu","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.inthineheart.com\/staging\/8143\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.inthineheart.com\/staging\/8143\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.inthineheart.com\/staging\/8143\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.inthineheart.com\/staging\/8143\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.inthineheart.com\/staging\/8143\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6540"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.inthineheart.com\/staging\/8143\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6540\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11197,"href":"https:\/\/www.inthineheart.com\/staging\/8143\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6540\/revisions\/11197"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.inthineheart.com\/staging\/8143\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.inthineheart.com\/staging\/8143\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.inthineheart.com\/staging\/8143\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}