3. MILES AND MISSIONS

3. MILES AND MISSIONS

Most scholars believe that after Paul’s first missionary journey, he wrote the book of Galatians.

Galatians 5:16-26

All of these qualities joined together as one; the fruit of the Spirit. They all come by way of God’s Holy Spirit.

The Fruit of the Spirit

1. God’s provision for believers to share the personality of Christ (Galatians 2:20).

Paul is describing one of the most revolutionary things that happened at the rebirth. We have the supernatural ability to take on the personality of Christ, and to replace our own. We find great freedom in the filling of the Spirit.

• Love: We have a supernatural ability to demonstrate God’s love (Romans 5:8)

God’s kind of love is always demonstrative. He cannot keep it to Himself. The nature of God’s love is that it has to be given.

Romans 5:8 – Three different people or three kinds of people are involved in this agape love. God want to demonstrate agape, so He demonstrated it through Christ. Agape is something God does through someone else for the sake of a third party. It is something God demonstrates through one person to extend to another.

“Phileo love” is brotherly love, friendship love, a wonderful kind of love. It is based on common interests. “Agape love” is based on best interests.

Only God is capable of “agape.” God will always show you how much He loves you; not just tell you.

• Joy: We have the supernatural ability to discover joy even in difficulty (Matthew 13:44).

The word is “chara” in the Greek. Our greatest reason for joy is that we are the recipients of the grace of God on the cross (Luke 10:20).

Matthew 13:44 – Joy is associated with discovery. We will never live lives free of difficulty, but what we can find is that we can discover Christ in the midst of that difficulty; and there is our joy.

James 1:2 – Our joy is in finding something of the Living, Active Christ right in the middle of what we are going through. God is at work (John 5:17). The grace of God extended to us in the most harrowing circumstances.

• Peace: We have a supernatural ability to have peace when our worlds are shaken (Psalm 46:1-4; Hebrews 12:26-29; Colossians 3:15).

Psalm 46:1-4, 10 – Be still and know that I am God.

Hebrews 12:26-29 – God shakes up everything that can be shaken, so we can see what can’t be shaken. He does it in our lives many times. What we see left is what is under our feet, which is Christ and Christ alone.

Colossians 3:15 – The rule of thumb regarding peace in the life of a believer is authority – the crown. Any place where we completely submit to Christ’s authority, we can experience the peace that comes only from the Holy Spirit.

Definitions of patience

1. Hupomone: The ability to bear up under difficult circumstances.

The patience of Job (James 5:11).

2. Makrothumia: The ability to bear up with difficult people.

• Patience: We have the supernatural ability to bear up with difficult people.

People are far more difficult to deal with than circumstances. When there is a place where we can put our blame on a face, we’ve got big problems. We have got a noose around our neck, and something Satan uses to try and destroy us and relationships. We have a personalized way to get through relationships.

• Kindness: We have the supernatural ability to remain warm and tender-hearted in an uncaring world.

There is nothing about this world that helps us to stay tender. Only the Spirit of God can keep us from closing down when we’ve been hurt enough. Tears may come at an inappropriate time, but praise God. The fruit of the Spirit comes in our lives, mending and softening tough hearts, and makes us tender.

• Goodness: We have the supernatural ability to be genuinely beneficial to this world.

To really do something that matters in Jesus name while we are here; something that is eternal.

• Faithfulness: We have the supernatural ability to believe God and to act on our belief.

Faith really is simply believing God. It comes by way of God’s own hand.

• Gentleness: We have the supernatural ability to surrender and submit to God’s will.

It is lying back in the hands of God and letting Him do His thing in our lives. Lean back and let God brush out the mess we have made. Submit to His trustworthy hands, and let Him do whatever it takes to straighten and smooth things, and bring us to a place of restoration.

• Self-Control: We have the supernatural ability to exercise restraint (2 Timothy 1:7).

2 Timothy 1:7 – No one was born with self-control. Everyone has something that seeks to chain or control them. When Christ came to dwell in us through the Spirit of God, He brought with Him His self-control, so that we would have the ability to also be self controlled. Only self can determine who is in control. It is a choice that we make.

2. A super-nature completely contrary to our human natures (Galatians 5:17).

Galatians 5:17 – At every moment in our lives, either the flesh is in control of us, or the supernatural nature of God is in control of us. We will never be able to balance them on a scale. One will always dominate the other. They never balance out. They are working in polar-opposite ways in our lives. One has to submit to the other and self makes the decision to which he will submit.

3. The supernatural outcome of living in the Spirit (Galatians 5:16).

The fruit of the Spirit is released by learning to live in the Spirit.

Live in the Spirit by walking with God through:

• Daily surrender to His authority.

The most important thing we can do when we awaken at any given morning is settle the matter of authority. Christ has come to have authority over our lives, for our good, so that He can set us free.

• Daily cleansing from sin.

The more we know the Living God, the more He gets picker in our lives. He begins to pick on the thought life, and not just the words or actions, but at the point the thoughts begin rolling around in our life. Daily confession of sin keeps us cleansed, and keeps us from hindering the filling of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

• Daily desiring the filling of the Spirit (Luke 11:13; Galatians 2:20).

Luke 11:13 – Ask God for the filling of His Spirit to overflowing. He fills the empty places that are an accident waiting to happen without Him. Through the filling of the Holy Spirit we live out the words of Galatians 2:20.