Despite the wavering beliefs that float around defiling sound Christian doctrine today, obedience and the fruit of the Holy Spirit are still the keys to our Christian faith. Though our salvation is a gift purchased by Jesus, 2000 years ago on the cross before you were a conceiving thought (Ephesians 2:8). Faithfulness (one of the fruits of the Spirit) and obedience are like a married couple, working interchangeably in our walk with Christ. Our faith should always continue to produce ripe fruits, aligned with the very belief in Jesus that saved us from perishing in the first place (James 2:18). Heaven is not going to be filled to the brim with gossipers, nor slanders or fornicators.
Unfortunately, many believers can only list a few fruits of the Spirit because most don't know scripture, failing to ponder on the word. We live in a perverse age where the Bible is the last thought of reflection for the modern-day Christian; an age that is in desperate need of a revival as scripture declares in Romans 8:19 AMP “For [even the whole] creation [all nature] waits eagerly for the children of God to be revealed.”
Our generation rarely acknowledges that Christianity was built on a spiritual battlefield — with men of God such as William Tyndale executed by strangulation for his steadfast faithfulness to God through smuggling English translations of the Bible into Britain. Not to mention in detail other founding fathers in the faith that were martyred for Christ: from the first martyr Stephen in the book of Acts to the likes of the great apostles Paul, Peter, Andrew, Thomas, Simon the Zealot, Philip, James (son of Zebedee) and the estimated 70 million Christians that have been martyred throughout the last two millenniums.
The fruits of the Spirit which are love, peace, faithfulness, joy, goodness, gentleness, patience, self-control and kindness are attributes that show our lives are in harmony with the Holy Spirit (Galatians 5:22-25).
But how can I proactively and reactively produce these fruits? This is done through faithfully being obedient to the Holy Spirit: the inward and outward acts of submitting to what scripture says persistently and deliberately because of your confidence in the Lord. Those that do so are like a firm tree, continuously fed by streams of water and yielding fruits in every season (Psalm 1:3)
Producing these fruits does not depend on your rank or position in ministry, household, or career path. Neither is it based on feelings of inner turmoil, cheerfulness, or in a season of abundance or drought. The expectation of all believers – by El Roi, meaning the “God who Sees” – is to grow in spiritual matters regardless of how our emotions flare up amid adversities, hardship and deep pruning.
Kings Have Fallen Due to Lack of Fruit and Obedience.
One of the biblical characters that failed in the long term was the first King of Israel. After the Lord exalted Saul into kingship and gave him the Spirit of the Lord, he got ahead of himself overtime, failing to produce the character traits of faithfulness by disobeying the Lord when he spared the Amalekites king and kept their livestock when Saul was told to destroy them all. Saul also failed in patience when he offered a burnt offering to the Lord without waiting for the arrival of Prophet Samuel at Gilgal (I Samuel 13:8-14).
Saul’s failure to obey and show the characteristics of the fruit of the Spirit resulted in God sending Prophet Samuel to reject him as God's appointed King of Israel impacting his family inheriting the throne. Scripture specifically declares in I Samuel 15:22 that “So Samuel said: “Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, As in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, And to heed than the fat of rams.”
It's better to follow the commands of God rather than to get fixated and lost in the performance of religious rituals and appeasing man. One day we will give an account of how we lived our lives and we’re at risk of getting turned away alongside the multitude of people who will stand in front of Jesus. Jesus foretells in Matthew 7:22-23 NKJV, “Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’”
Secular Society Straying Far Away
We now live in a secular society that is rapidly changing and departing far from the faith. Obedience and producing fruits used to be an honourable, righteous mindset to have; now civil disobedience has become a groupthink mentality across the globe. We have daily public rituals of online mob justice where people slander others from the comfort of their niche communities behind a phone screen. Even believers in Christ contribute to these acts within the four walls of the church nullifying the transformation they claim to have. Disobedience and fruit lacking are growing beyond belief. But there is an award for those who steadfastly obey the word and live by the spirit.
From the Lord watching over the saints who actively obey Him (Psalm 33:18), doers of the word being promised blessings (Luke 11:28), to the likes of those that are obedient to His commandments knowing the Lord (1 John 5:3), to your faith recognised by your fruits (Matthew 7:16-20). You can’t be a faithful Christian without striving to grow more and more in your obedience and fruit.
Jesus walked as a living model of obedience, fruit-bearing in all his ways, setting the standard on how to pick up our cross and follow Him. Scripture says in Philippians 2:5-8 NKJV “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.”How Jesus came to earth in the likeness of man is the very act of producing all nine fruits of the Spirit if you take the time to ponder deeply on this scripture.
Living in the ever-changing tides of the 21st century almost makes us so far detached from conceptualising how excruciating the process of producing fruits and obeying what Jesus had to do to nullify the claims of our sins.
Always remember that even though Jesus is God, he still experienced human mental limitations such as fear and mental anguish for the tribulation that was yet to come from the very people He was liberating. So much so Jesus carried out to our Abba Father on the night of his arrest in Luke 22:42-43 AMP “saying, “Father, if You are willing, remove this cup [of divine wrath] from Me; yet not My will, but [always] Yours be done.” Now an angel appeared to Him from heaven, strengthening Him.”
Jesus then experienced sheer abandonment by his closest friends (the disciples) and still didn’t hold it against His disciple Peter when he denied Jesus three times. Using Peter and the other disciples as vessels to build His church — showing the fruit of love and kindness in His grace and mercy.
Taking into account the social-historical practices at the time explored in the academic article “On the Physical Death of Jesus Christ,” Jesus likely experienced extreme fatigue from the physical beating He endured after the first Jewish trial. His feelings of fatigue would have probably gotten worse having been forced to walk 2.5 miles back and forth between six trials.
Before the initial stage of a case at the magistrate for a Roman execution; flogging was a requirement unless you were a woman, Roman senator or soldier. Even though the flogging of Jesus wasn't detailed in the Gospel, the Romans that persecuted Him would have used short whips which had more than two braided leather thongs of varied lengths, encompassing sharp pieces of sheep bones and small iron balls that were tied at intervals; which was a roman flogging custom at the time. With the impacts of the whipping of the sheep bones cutting into the skin and subcutaneous tissues. The level of flogging was dependent on the lictors but was intended to weaken the victim to death. Having experienced severe flogging, it most probably left Jesus in a preshock state. Just imagine this excruciating feeling Jesus felt knowing that more was ahead.
Crufficifiction was one of the most shameful and cruel methods of executions, with the Romans reserving capital punishment for the vilest of criminals. Jesus was severely weakened by the flogging that he endured; so much so that he couldn’t withstand holding the patibulum from the Praetorium of Pilate to the place of the crucifixion only one-third of a mile away. Roman soldiers and the Jewish crowds he came to save taunted Him endlessly — until death — with soldiers casting lots for His clothes. Christ made seven terse utterances which must have been extremely painful. One of which was in Luke 23:34 AMP saying “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.” And they cast lots, dividing His clothes among themselves.” Showing how Jesus produced the fruits of the Spirit (Love, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness and self-control at that moment) up until death.
If some of us devout Christians were in His shoes, our fruit and obedience would have been like withered leaves in autumn. We would have acted just like Simon Peter cutting off the ear of the high priest servant, rebelling against the very act that would have made you and I righteous before God. Some of us Christians would have sworn a swamp of abusive language to the crowd of watchful eyes as the nails were being hammered into our feet. Now ponder on the day-to-day disobedient acts and empty basket of fruit you produce in your life and then think about how Jesus obeyed and produced the fruits for your salvation up until His death on the cross when you were still slaves to sin.
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