Tuesday 8 December 2015

The Ministry of the Holy Spirit Part 2



The Ministry of the Holy Spirit Part 2

Scripture: Galatians 5 v 22 - 23:
"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law."

The infilling of the Holy Spirit is different from the baptism of the Holy Spirit. It is when the Holy Spirit is within you to expand your spiritual growth through bringing His fruit to maturity in your life.

When you are born again you immediately feel peace as your sins are cleansed away by the Blood of Jesus. You feel the love of Father God blessing you. Love and peace are two of the nine fruit of the Holy Spirit.

The ministry of the Holy Spirit is to bring all nine fruit to maturity in you. These nine fruit are the perfect nature of Jesus Christ which you receive when you are baptised in water after you are born again.

Verse 16 says "This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh." The Spirit and the flesh are contrary to one another and if you give in to the flesh you will not do that which pleases the Lord.

The works of the flesh are adultery, fornication, uncleanness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, wrath, strife, heresy, envy, murder, drunkenness, revellings etc. They which do these things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. Verse 19 - 21.

The flesh is controlled  by satan and his demons and when we allow him to manipulate us we fall into sin and become bound by demons. Only Jesus never sinned nor was in any bondage. Only Jesus is able to save from sin and deliver from demons.

The ministry of the Holy Spirit is to convict us of fleshly sins before they bring us down. He wants to eliminate our fleshly side to make room for the good fruit of Jesus.  We need to make sure we have good ground for Him to cultivate so that we bring forth a hundredfold return. Stony hard ground brings forth very little.

Longsuffering means patience. It means you have to endure hurtful problems over a long period of time so that patience grows. Impatience comes from a proud heart that wants everything its own way.  Impatience never waits for the Lord to complete His perfect work. It wants everything now. 

Pride wants to control, manipulate and demand and this is the very opposite of the fruit of the Holy Spirit. Pride is full of self-righteousness - I am so much better than this sinner. God hates this attitude. The Pharisees who crucified Jesus were full of self-righteousness.

He produces meekness in us. The two meekest men who ever lived were Jesus and Moses. They endured many hardships without complaining. The word meekness is in no ways a weakness. It means your strength under God's control. Its what submission to the Holy Spirit really means.

Temperance is self-control, which is knowing when to stop before whatever wrong we are busy with becomes a problem. It means not letting your anger become a wrecking ball. Not letting your habits become destructive. It means letting the Holy Spirit control your emotions so that you can help someone else.

The Holy Spirit is a person and if you grieve Him with very negative behaviour He withdraws from you. It leaves you exposed to the storms of life with no shelter in sight. So if you are in this unhappy position check back to see where you grieved the Holy Spirit - ask God's forgiveness and change your ways permanently.

There is much more to say on the ministry of the Holy Spirit so there will be a part 3.

Prayer: Father God, its so important for us to know the Holy Spirit, who is our most precious companion, teacher and Comforter. He is our conscience and we should be ultra careful not to sear our conscience with resistance to His promptings. Help us Lord to become submissive to Him. In Jesus' name. Amen.