Morning Hope – May 7, 2011

James 3:16 For where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work (KJV)

Galatians 5:22-23 but the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law. (KJV)

We are going to wrap up looking at using the fruit of the Spirit as weapons against strife.

Keep in mind the basic definition of strife, “self-centeredness”.

• It is making everything in the situation about you.
• It’s trusting only in yourself to fix the problem.
• It is relying on yourself for ideas, and confrontations.
• It is only relying on yourself to “Fix” the other person.

By reading that list you should now see how the fruit of the Spirit called “Faith” combats strife.

• Faith says I trust GOD.
• Faith says I can’t do it myself.
• Faith says God said it and I believe it so matter what I see at the moment.
• Faith says God is on the job!
• Faith says God is big enough!

Do you see the difference? Strife makes it about you, humanism. Faith makes it about God, where lies the victory!

So if you follow that thought it is quite easy to see how meekness and temperance also fit this model.

Meekness toward God is that disposition of spirit in which we accept His dealings with us as good, and therefore without disputing or resisting.

If it isn’t good, it is not from God. Period. The enemy comes to kill, steal and destroy, not God. His thoughts toward you are for GOOD.

John 10:10 The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.

Jeremiah 29:11 For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.

Allowing the fruit of the Spirit to rule, which we have said many times in this series, is just letting Who lives in you do the work, letting the Spirit of God that dwells in you be a higher priority than your bossy self.

Which leads us to temperance, which means self-control. We will close up with the definition of self-control.

Self-control – the virtue of one who masters his desires and passions, esp. his sensual appetites

The *only* way to do this is to let God run the show folks.

Amazing results happen when you tell strife to hit the door! But rest assured the moment you think you’re going to apply this strife will knock double time on your door. That’s when you remember this promise:

2 Corinthians 2:14aNow thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ

It says always. It doesn’t say sometime. Knowing the will of God in this situation, which I pray you do by now, you know it is not God’s will for you to be in strife. So you will be victorious!

It is not an overnight thing, it is a lifetime of seeing , and battling this vile thing when it raises it head in your life. Sometimes it is easy and sometimes not so much, but you can have victory and you can see amazing changes in your life if you walk in the Spirit and not in the flesh.

Romans 8:37 Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.

Be blessed!

-Kath

Scripture quotations marked “KJV” are taken from the Holy Bible, King James Version, Cambridge, 1769.