Fruit vs Power

Some have said I have quite the character! How about yourself? What can you say about your character?

I know that as the years pass my character changes. Some of those changes as to do with my age and experience. But I also know that many of those changes occur because of the wonder working power of the Holy Spirit.

But when the Holy Spirit controls our lives, he will produce this kind of fruit in us: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness. (Galatians 5:22 NLT)

The Bible describes the fruit of the Spirit but in and of themselves fruit is not the power of the Spirit. The fruit is the outward manifestation to an inward working of the Holy Spirit. What I am saying here is that the fruit is no more than the serendipity of the power working within us. The fruit is no more supernatural than a fig is on a tree. So the fruit is not the super natural act itself. it is the result of a supernatural working and yielding on our part to change.

Some unbelievers naturally appear to possess some of the fruit of the Spirit. I said it appears because it does not mean it is the Holy Spirit working in them. It is their nature. When the Holy Spirit bears fruit within you, you do not have any control over it. You just are!

An example from my own life would be the time I was slain in the spirit. Oh yeah, the Spirit of God was so strong He laid me out on the floor. It was as if I were in another world; not even conscience of the present. Before May of 1991, I cussed like a drunken sailor. When I finally arose from the floor, that cursing was totally taken away from me. I did not have to fake it, practice speaking with proper language by using self-control. It was supernaturally gone!

When Saul was struck off his horse it was the power of the Holy Spirit. He had an encounter with God that changed his character. No longer Saul, a murderer, but Paul, a man who was filled with the Holy Spirit, listening and teaching the Gospel of the risen Christ as he went.

First came the power from an infilling of the Holy Spirit and then came the change or fruit.

As Christians following Christ, we are in need of the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives. He has the supernatural power to heal, deliver, and to cause us to become the person the Father has created us to become. We can no longer live without the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives. If we are, we are faking it, people. We cannot force ourselves to change, or intellectually work our way to heaven. We are to be broken before Him, recognizing our feeble minds, bodies, and souls. We are so limited in who we are in the natural while there is no limit with the power of the Holy Spirit within.

Today, I pray we all get a touch from the Holy Spirit. Not an old touch, but a new exciting touch, a lightening bold touch of power striking us right where we are to change us into a life bearing fruit tree. Fruit that changes our character, with power to mold us into gospel witnesses throughout our world.