More Jesus

 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Galatians 5:22-23

Most of us know the above verse, just as most of us will likely admit we're lacking in all of the fruits of the Spirit that are listed. The lack of these spiritual fruits in our lives is not the problem. The way we go about filling that lack is.

Henry Blackaby made an interesting point on this in one of his devotionals. He said that our response to knowing our lack is to ask the Lord to give us more of what we lack. We ask for more love, or more joy, or more peace. The desire is sincere, but our mistake is centering on a fruit of the Spirit, and not the Person of the Spirit, Jesus. We don't need to be asking for more of any one aspect of the Spirit, but for more of the Spirit Himself. We need to ask for more of Jesus, because Jesus is joy, and He is peace, and He is kindness, and goodness, and gentleness. All of the fruit of the Holy Spirit is found in Him. The more we have of Him, the more we have of His fruit. Where He is missing in our lives, His fruit will also be missing. When His fullness is present within us, so too will be His fruit. The more of Jesus that we have, the more of His life we have.

Oswald Chambers spoke in a similar way about this. He talked about the "new name" that we're given in Christ. He said that God writes our new name in every place in our heart and lives where we have surrendered to Him, where we have died to self that we might live to and in Him. He said that in those places where we haven't yielded, haven't surrendered, we still bear our own name. We're His, but we're not fully His. We've reserved some part ourselves, often a very large part. He said that we have His name in "spots only, like spiritual measles." In short, we're spotty believers, spotty followers of Jesus.

I think a great part of our problem is that we're always "trying" to be better followers of Christ. We want to exhibit more of His personality in our lives, so we ask Him to give us what we need to be so, because we're trying so hard to be like Him. What we miss is that He has already given us everything in Himself in order that we can live in His fullness. As I've seen it put, we're saved by grace, but we continue to live by the law. We're trying to get into a room that has already been opened to us. We don't have to kick that door in. It's wide open before us. That's where our old self-life keeps showing up. Consciously or not, we hold to this idea that we can achieve Christlikeness by our own striving. Self is exalted over Christ.....and we keep on trying.

Nowhere in the Gospels did Jesus ever exhort His listeners to "try harder" to live out His teachings. He did constantly encourage them, indeed command them to receive all that He gives them. Jesus said, "Freely I have given, freely receive." Through His cross and His resurrection, He really has given us all things. We don't have to try to get to them. Through faith, obedience, and yielded lives, we can receive all He gives us. Are we ready to cease the striving to live for Him and just surrender ourselves to Him......and freely receive all things?

Blessings,

Pastor O