Fruit of the Spirit

Part 1 - Walking closely with the Holy Spirit

When we are walking through the dark wooded forest of this world on the narrow path that leads to salvation, we need a guide. That guide is the Holy Spirit. We can stand back a distance from Him and let Him lead us. We’ll make it through the woods to salvation, but we will miss out on so much!

If we choose to walk on the path right next to the Holy Spirit we could converse with Him. He would tell us things that people behind Him couldn’t hear. He would tell us about hidden truths in scripture and the spiritual world. He would give us exciting revelations. We would learn things that the smartest most well known bible experts in the world could never know because they walk too far behind Him. They choose to be led by their intellect rather than the Spirit.

He’d be able to point things out to us as we walked. He would show us paths that run off the real path. He would explain how many of our ancestors chose not to follow Him and made their own paths that strayed off into the woods. He would tell us about their tragic endings, making us walk that much closer to Him!

He would explain to us that the mean beings in the woods that want to torture and kill us are very scared of Him. They would be less likely to come after us the closer we walked with Him.

The Holy Spirit is the source of faith. Faith radiates from Him. The closer we walk with Him, the more His faith will radiate into us. It will pierce and saturate our bones, our mind, and our heart. Faith and vigilance is what turns a Christian into a disciple.

When He sees our faith developing, along with a desire to do His will, He’ll start sharing more secrets with us. He’ll tell us how to cast out demons. He’ll tell us how to heal sick and injured people. Such details aren’t mentioned in the bible, they can only be learned from Him. Once He reveals such secrets He would then ask us to use these revelations to help other people stay on the path. We’d be His helper, His right hand man. He would tell us that the people who are far behind Him are more likely to be attacked by the beings in the woods because they are so far away from Him. When they’re being attacked He’ll ask us to go back and cast those beings back into the woods where they belong. We’ll do it with eager obedience. When we turn around to help someone, He’ll turn around too and will be right behind us. When we confront those beings, they’ll be shaking with fear. It may appear that they are looking at us, but they are actually seeing the Holy Spirit right behind us. We’ll cast them back into the woods and heal any wounds they may have caused.

While walking next to the Holy Spirit we will realize that He is very humble. He tells us that yes he does have ultimate power over everything, but he has one mission...to do Jesus’ will. He loves Jesus and wants to glorify Him. He makes it real clear that if Jesus doesn’t want Him to do something, He isn’t going to do it...regardless of how much we plead for it to be done. This is why the Holy Spirit will tell us that it is important to thank Jesus for all things, not Him. He’s only doing what Jesus wants Him to do.

The Holy Spirit will tell us that there are some spiritual mysteries that we may never understand until their truths are revealed to us in heaven. But He’ll say if we vigilantly seek the hidden truths of such mysteries, most will be revealed to us here on earth. Jesus is excited and eager to reveal such things to us!

As we walk through the dark wooded forest we’ll occasionally see something just off the path that is enticing. Maybe it’s a bag of money, food, alcohol, power, an attractive person, prestige...you name it. If we start focusing on that enticement rather than Him, we’ll start veering off the path and into the woods. This grieves the Holy Spirit. He’ll then give us a yucky feeling He calls “conviction.” If we ignore His conviction, it is insulting to Him. He’ll stop giving us His conviction and allow us to wander deeper and deeper into the woods until we are lost. If we don’t ever repent and scream for His help, we will lose all hope of salvation and the evil beings will devour us.

When we walk through the dark wooded forest closely next to the Holy Spirit, we’ll learn many things that other people on the path never will. His faith will radiate deeply into us. When this happens, the fruit of the Spirit will appear in our lives. The fruit will allow us to overcome our lusts as well as demonic influences. The fruit will allow us to unleash God’s will on the earth!

Galatians 5:16-26

But I say, Walk in the Spirit, and you will not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another; that not whatever you may will, but these things you do. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under Law. Now the works of the flesh are clearly revealed, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lustfulness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, fights, jealousies, angers, intrigues, dissensions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revelings, and things like these; of which I tell you beforehand, even as I also said before, that the ones practicing such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is: love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faith, meekness, self-control. Against such things there is not a law. But the ones belonging to Christ crucified the flesh with its passions and lusts. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. Let us not become self-conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.

Part 2 - Spiritual Eyes

A young fruit tree needs to be vigilantly cared for. It needs watering, fertilizing, and pruning. It doesn’t usually produce much fruit until it gets bigger and stronger. This is like walking with the Holy Spirit. We have to be vigilant in walking closely with the Spirit. When we do, His fruit will start growing. When we finally get to taste of His fruit, we’ll find nothing more sweet.

When we walk closely with the Holy Spirit, He’ll reveal things to us. Pretty soon we’ll look at the world differently than most other people. We’ll start looking through spiritual eyes, rather than worldly eyes. As much as we walk closely with the Holy Spirit is as much as we look at the world through spiritual eyes.

Here are a few things that happen when looking through spiritual eyes…

When someone does something evil we won’t have animosity towards that person, at least we won’t choose to hold on to that animosity. Instead of hating the person who committed the evil deed, we’ll hate the evil spirits that influenced that person to do the deed.
When the demons attack, most of their fiery darts will bounce off us. If any stick, they won’t penetrate very deep.
We’ll know we are NOT entitled to hold any amount of grudge or unforgiveness towards anyone, regardless of what they did. We’ll let it go and in the process lose the tiring burden of carrying those negative feelings.
We’ll walk through life with little worry or stress because the Spirit’s faith will blanket us. The world will scratch its head at times trying to figure out why we aren’t stressed while under conditions considered stressful by others.
We’ll lose the fear of injury, illness, and death. We’ll know injuries and illnesses, no matter what they are, can be healed. When we die we’ll be in heaven forever. Death? It’s not a bad thing for a disciple!.
We’ll develop a burden to share the full gospel with others. To break the strongholds in their lives and set them free.
Hidden truths in scripture will be revealed. The bible will come alive.
We’ll be given the desire to unleash God’s will on earth. The fruit will give us the ability to do it.

We should strive to look through spiritual eyes at all times. Our lives will forever be changed when we do. We’d become a disciple!

Part 3 - The fruit

If we want to gauge how closely we are walking with the Holy Spirit, look for the fruit. To the degree His fruit is blossoming in our lives, is how closely we are walking with Him.

If we want to determine how closely we were walking with the Spirit during a particular situation, determine whether we responded to the situation while looking through worldly eyes or spiritual eyes. If we responded with a knee-jerk emotional response, we can be sure we were looking through soulish worldly eyes.

Love

Looking through spiritual eyes makes us look at people differently, actually all things differently. Life becomes more amazing. Even a garden that grows food and has a pond is amazing. The life that it can produce, attract, and sustain is amazing. The food, bugs, butterflies, fish, frogs, bees, birds, squirrels, and rabbits will be watched in amazement.

When we look at people who are acting badly we don’t hate them. We see their bad behaviour as a lack of knowledge of God. We see the demons having their way with them. We hate those spirits, not the person. We want to show them what’s really going on and how to get those spirits cast out. If they are wounded, we want to heal them.

Love allows us to live simply and deeply. Love God and love each other. Everything else is a far distant third place. Actually, there isn’t a third place. Everything we do should be about loving God and each other. If it isn’t, the devil is distracting us! Through the conduit of the Holy Spirit, Jesus loves us. Like the Father gave Jesus power and authority over this world out of love, Jesus wants to give us power and authority over all the works of the devil out of love. Again, He does this through the conduit of the Holy Spirit.

When we are walking closely with the Holy Spirit, we will have love for our spouse, family, friends, and even strangers. There is no stress, anxiety, or emotion that should supersede our love and respect for each other, even momentarily. That way demons will have a hard time influencing our relationships. Stresses, anxieties, and emotions are fleeting, a solid foundation of love and respect isn’t.

The Holy Spirit will allow us to love simply and deeply. He’ll show us that a simple life is a good life. We’ll appreciate the simple things. We won’t hold negative feelings towards anyone.

Joy

The Holy Spirit will release a deep joy in disciples. We’ll be excited to see Jesus’ next small victory whether it be someone learning the full gospel, a soul being saved, demons being cast out, someone healed, someone raised from the dead, a hidden truth being revealed, scripture coming alive, someone learning to speak in tongues, etc. Disciples are Jesus’ soldiers. When we see someone’s evil strongholds being destroyed, it brings us deep joy. It brings joy to have Jesus’ will unleashed on earth, especially when we are part of making it happen!

Peace

As we spiritually mature and start looking through spiritual eyes move often, the world will stop having its way with us. All the negative attacks the world makes on us will start rolling off our back. As we walk closely with the Holy Spirit and bask in His radiating faith, we will know all is OK. No matter what is happening, it will be OK. We will lose our fear and anxiety. We will live in continual deep peace. What a healthy blessing this is.

When walking closely with the Holy Spirit we will go through deliverance. When demons leave there usually isn’t an obvious visual manifestation. But there is something that usually happens, we feel a sense of lightness and peace. It’s as if some type of oppression has left us. It did! As we go through continuous deliverance our sense of peace will grow. Peace is often the first and most obvious fruit of the Spirit we will feel especially when demons such as pain, fear, anxiety, anger, unforgiveness, witchcraft, doubt, and unbelief are cast out.

Long-suffering (spiritual toughness)

When we are walking closely with the Holy Spirit and looking through spiritual eyes, His faith is radiating into us. When this happens we can absorb all the attacks the enemy can throw at us. Most of the devil’s fiery darts will bounce off our shield of faith. If any make it past the shield, they won’t penetrate very deep.

Long-suffering will allow us to make it through an illness or injury in peace. It’ll allow us to love someone through long periods of their bad behaviour. Long-suffering is spiritual toughness, spiritual endurance. Not only can the Holy Spirit’s radiating faith fill us with long-suffering, it’ll even allow us to suffer with a sense of humor.

Kindness (treating others thoughtfully)

Kindness comes easy and natural when walking closely with the Holy Spirit. It brings as much joy to us than the person we are helping. We know we are bringing God’s will to earth every time we are showing kindness to someone.

Goodness (doing what’s pleasing to God)

Think of goodness as acting righteously in God’s eyes, regardless of what people think. The world will tell you to support homosexuality. Goodness will prevent you from supporting it. The world will say that it’s OK for the wife to be the head of the family. Goodness will prevent the husband from letting his wife usurp his headship. The world will say it’s OK to smoke marijuana. Goodness will say it’s not OK because it lets demons in.

Goodness puts the Word over the world.

Faith

We can be led down the path of salvation by the Holy Spirit while keeping a distance from Him. We can submit ourselves to Him enough to be saved, but not enough to walk closely with Him. If we keep our distance from Him, His radiant faith won’t be able to penetrate us as deeply.

The closer we walk with Him, the more His radiant faith will penetrate us When we continuously walk right next to Him, we will stay saturated in His faith and His fruit will blanket us. When this happens anything will be possible. There will be nothing to fear or be anxious over. Faith is the trunk from which the other fruits blossom.

Meekness (willingness to submit to righteous authority)

A lot of bible translations mention this fruit as being “gentleness.” I believe a better translation is meekness. Meekness in a spiritual sense. Spiritual meekness is the willingness to submit to righteous authority. The bible establishes the hierarchy of authority.

There are plenty of men who speak softly and are physically gentle, while at the same time are full of pride, self-righteousness, lusts, and self-centeredness. This is because they aren’t spiritually meek. They aren’t willing to submit to the Word/Jesus. They aren’t willing to humble themselves and put themselves through deliverance. They aren’t willing to fully die to self so they can fully live for the Lord.

There are plenty of nice, well dressed ladies who attend church and have a family focused Facebook page while at the same time refusing to have a submissive heart to their husbands. Deliverance can cast out those dominating, rebellious demons.

There are a lot of children who don’t show their parents respect. A spiritually meek child will always respect their parents because the Word/Jesus says they should. The child is willing to put the will of the Lord over their emotions. Jesus will bless them when they do this.

Self-control

Walking closely with the Holy Spirit and looking through spiritual eyes will allow us to stay spiritually centered. We can easily be influenced by demons through our emotions. Our emotions are part of our soul (mind, will, and emotions). We must submit our soul to the will of the Holy Spirit. When we do, the Holy Spirit will give us self-control. This will include plenty of conviction and deliverance.

Part 4 - A disciple’s action plan

Repent on our ancestor’s behalf for anything that may have prevented them from walking closely with the Holy Spirit. Forgive them for any generational curses or iniquity that have come down the family line due to their sins. Break those generation curses.
Repent for any sins we have ever committed that may have allowed demons to enter us.
Cast those demons out. All demons hinder us in walking closely with the Holy Spirit, but here are some common ones...

Doubt of the Word, unbelief of the Word, skepticism of the Word, distrust of the Word, ignorance of the Word, shame of the Word, deceiving spirits, antichrist spirit, faithlessness, hard heartedness.
Negativity, negative feelings towards anyone, ought, unforgiveness, bitterness, anger, rage, hatred, murder, frustration, annoyance, criticalness, strife, quarelling, unrest, bickering, fighting, and arguing.
Pride, arrogance, self-righteousness, self-centeredness, self-will, narcissism, taking an offense, grudge holding, brooding, entitlement to hold negative feelings towards someone.
Witchcraft, rebellion.
Jezebel, Leviathan.

4. Be vigilant. Deliverance should be done continuously to stay cleared out. Be a good soldier. Continue to unleash Jesus’ will

on earth!