But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace,
longsuffering, kindness,
goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self–control.
against such there is no law.
And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh
with its passions and desires. If we live in the Spirit,
let us also walk in the Spirit.
let us also walk in the Spirit.
Galatians 5:22–25
History is important to our
understanding as in secular events, and events within the Church. To ignore
history is to be ignorant of the facts and reasons for why things exist; the
perception of the people, and pragmatically carried out in life, and in the
Church. History at the beginning of the Church will tell us that things were
different then and in contrast to the present. This fact must not be overlooked
and passed by with only a glance: those who came into the early Church and
became part of the Church were for the most part: Jewish believers. These
believers saved saints of God, however they were not at first, before the
founding of the Church, in the Church. Why? Pentecost had yet to come and the
indwelling of the Holy Spirit in all believers. As the Church grew, more and
more Gentiles became part of the Church, believers indwelled with the Holy
Spirit and this by receiving the Gospel. The Jews, as do many in this present
age, reject the Messiah Jesus Christ, His Gospel and lost in their sins. This
is true for many of the Gentiles, they too are lost in their sins and in need
of the Gospel to quicken the faith in them that God implanted in them by His
election, and become the Bride of Christ. As the Gospel spread to other nations
and those people heard the Gospel and saved they became part of the early
Church both Jews and Gentiles and in time the Church was filled with more
Gentiles than Jews. After the destruction of the temple and the city of
Jerusalem in 70A.D. the Jews were scattered and they fled to the surrounding
nations and did not become a nation again until 1848A.D. Judaism with all its
ceremonial laws were abolished leaving only intact the Ten Commandments which
all believers are to follow. Today when we hear of a Jewish person becoming a
believer, we rejoice with great joy as they are of the nation elected by God
and have the promise of God to restore them once again to His favor. This being
accomplished by their believing in the One whom they rejected: Jesus Christ.
Few Jewish people believed in Jesus
Christ as their promised Messiah, their Savior. The offer to them by God to
restore the Kingdom of God that was His promise to them, this offer would not
be given to them any longer as they rejected the King whom He sent. Not until
the Second Coming of Jesus Christ would the Kingdom of God be installed and not
in some “Rapture” as some teach, rather as the Bible clearly points out: on the
LAST DAY! In God’s economy, His dispensation towards this earth and especially
towards His children Who indwelled each child of God with the Holy Spirit which
is the baptism of the Holy Spirit is the promise our Lord and Savior Jesus
Christ gave in Acts 1:5, and began in Acts chapter 2. Nowhere in the Bibles is
there an inference of a “second blessing,” or that anyone been given as proof
an experience of the Baptism of the Holy Spirit. It is not that there is not an
experience as anyone who believes in Jesus Christ has, that knowledge, that
feeling that the Holy Spirit gives as He indwells the Christians and bringing
peace and love as never known before. We have assurance that our faith is
secure, our salvation is secure, we are going home to heaven when we pass from
this life into the life eternal with our Lord and Savior in heaven. It is not
as some teach and preach, and say, they experience: a revelational emotional
experience. An experience that is driving them to submit their souls to such as
speaking in some gibberish “tongue.” or jumping up and down in a frenzy of
emotion, or that they are to go out and heal, and to pray with those who are of
this world (John 17:9). It is not what we desire to have, some thrilling and
enticing emotion, rather it is that we as His children, saved, elected by God, and
as His ambassadors to show the “Fruit of the Spirit” and there is no law
against this indwelling of the Holy Spirit and the fruit derived through
experiencing the “Fruit of the Spirit.”
Here is another fact: If you do not
have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit; you do not and cannot experience the
“Fruit of the Spirit.” The “Fruit of the Spirit,” does not come from our carnal
nature, rather it comes by our submissiveness to our spiritual nature that
comes only to a believer when he/she saved and receives the baptism of the Holy
Spirit. Never is there even a hint in the New Testament of a class of believers
who have not had the baptism of the Holy Spirit and still serve God and
demonstrate the “Fruit of the Spirit.”
We are told to “walk in the Spirit” and if we do then we well not
fulfill the lust of the flesh. Here is a question to ponder: Would God expect
us and tell us to walk in the Spirit and not fulfill the lust of the flesh if
not give us a way to overcome that sinfulness of the flesh, if we are not able
to do so? NO! God commanded us to do so and this is based on the fact we have
the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, once, absolutely, completely, and now we are
able to “walk in the Spirit.” You cannot receive the Holy Spirit partially. The
Holy Spirit is a Person and you cannot receive partially a person, this must be
received fully and permanently. Allow then the Holy Spirit to control you, and
me and this cannot be done unless the Holy Spirit indwells us.
Blessed
by the God and Father
Of our Lord Jesus Christ,
Who
has blessed u with every spiritual
Blessing in the heavenly places
In
Christ just as He chose us in Him
Before the foundation of the world,
That
we should be holy and without blame
Before Him in love, having
predestined
Us
to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself,
According to the good pleasure of
His will.
To
the praise of the glory of His grace, by which
He made us accepted in the Beloved.
Ephesians
1:3–6
Today,
demonstrate the Fruit of the Spirit
Richard
L. Crumb
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