When God manifests his power his nature is revealed in it. Whenever Jesus reached out to touch someone through the power of God, it was the love of God that motivated him to do it.
In Jesus Christ all the fullness of God dwelt bodily. All that God is, as well as all that He can do, is manifested in Jesus.
Everything that Jesus did, everything that He said, everything that He was, was a revelation of God; this is why He is called the word of God. He became a Living Word through which God expressed Himself: God walked and talked and lived through the body of Jesus Christ. Everything that the Father wanted to convey of Himself was revealed in His Son, and God intends to do the same in us.
We are to be a revelation of God to the world, when people look upon us they should see Jesus Christ. A son of God becomes one with the Father. The father’s intentions and purposes are manifested in the sons. In order for us to come into sonship, Jesus ascended on high and sent forth the Holy Spirit.
By the ministry of the Holy Spirit, Jesus is revealed through us in two ways. The powers and the abilities of God are manifested in the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and the nature of Christ is revealed in the fruit of the Spirit.
In Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Therefore, when a word of wisdom or a word of knowledge or the words of prophecy come forth, it is a revelation of what is in the mind of Christ. When the gift of faith, of healings, and the working of miracles come forth, it is the abilities of Christ released through the ministry of the Holy Spirit.
When God heals the sick; it is a revelation of his love through the power of the Spirit.
When we minister in the Spirit, His love, His joy, His peace, His long-suffering, His gentleness, His kindness must come forth in what we do and say. The fruit of the Holy Spirit brings the revelation of who Jesus is, and the gifts of the Holy Spirit come as a revelation of what God can do. To minister effectively both must come forth in our life.
We cannot manifest the love of God effectively without His power. The love of God is what moves us, but the gifts of the Spirit enable us to manifest his nature in power.
Jesus loved Lazarus and that love motivated Him to go back to Judea, giving no thought to the Jews who were plotting to kill Him. The disciples went with Him thinking that they were going to die. They did not realize that no one could take Jesus’ life, but he would lay it down when the right time had come.
We see in Jesus the love and power of God Manifested. The love of God draws people and the power of God delivers them.in Jesus was the love that drew and the power that delivered.
We need the fruit of the Spirit in order to be truly motivated by the very nature of the Lord. His love and His compassion will constrain us (II Corinthians 5:14), and men will see Christ in us. Then, in whatever we do, the exhibition of His power will bring testimony and glory to Christ.
This is the only way that you can follow the command of the Lord, Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven. Matthew 5:16, KJV.
There is a revelation of the Father in the good works that you do, because what you are—what the fruit of the Spirit has become within you—brings a revelation of Jesus, as well as a revelation of His authority and power over the disease or the problem.
Each of the nine different identities of the fruit of the Spirit represents an attribute of Christ Jesus that is being reproduced in us.
On the natural level, a child is born with characteristics which he inherited from his mother and father and which are set from the time of conception. At times it is almost terrifying for the parents to realize that they bred into that child all of the fleshly nature which they later try to take out of him by discipline or by spiritual ministry.
However, in the realm of spirit, heredity and reproduction are different. From the time a person is born of God, there is a process, a living flow of God’s nature into him. Jesus referred to it in John 15 when He spoke of the vine and of the branches which abide in the vine that they may bring forth much fruit.
“Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you, unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me, and I in him, he bears much fruit; for apart from Me you can do nothing.” John 15:4–5.
The life of Christ flows into us in a reproductive, creative manner, so that the further we follow the Lord, the more Jesus Christ is revealed within us. The more we decrease, the more this new nature takes over, so that Christ is seen and exalted in us.
You may try to discipline, control, and regulate the old flesh until finally it looks almost Christian, but that will not work.
The fact remains that in the final test, it is not how you discipline and regulate the old nature; it is how you submit to Christ bringing forth the new nature, how you appropriate it and draw it by the grace of the Lord.
The Christian life is not a personal discipline; it is a daily, living appropriation of God Himself. You draw the life of God and are sustained, blessed, and fed by that which God brings.
How can the attributes of God become more evident in your life? Pick out the fruit of the Spirit that the Holy Spirit witnesses to your heart as the one you need most. Then start reading the Scriptures on it. Study it in the Word; pray for it; appropriate it. Soon it will be working in your life, because the key is appropriation. The key is to reach for it—see it, believe it, and then take it by faith. You can walk in anything which you see in God is for you.
May God give us churches where we can open our hearts to the promises in the Word of God so completely and perfectly that there will never be a time when we are not challenged to draw more of Him into our lives.
A church goes sour and stagnates when it is satisfied with bringing the people up to the level of whatever doctrines it embraces, instead of challenging them with all that God has for them.
We must constantly set before one another the goals we can attain in appropriating the divine nature. They are unlimited. There is no end to them.
God is infinite, and everything He brings forth bears that same infinite quality. He is eternal, and when He speaks a Word, it is eternal too. It will be done. David realized this and he said, For ever, O Lord, thy word is settled in heaven. Psalm 119:89, KJV. Anything which God brings forth has that infinite, exhaustless quality.
Many people believe that in Christ they are saved; but their ideas of salvation are such that they have already established in their minds the beginning and the extent of that salvation. They thank God that they will go to heaven when they die, or that when the Lord comes they will be caught up; but that is the extent of what it means to them.
They do not realize that they were born of God, and that their potential of growth and development in God is infinite, now and for all eternity to come.
There is no end to what we can become or do as children of God. Only in our own minds do the walls of limitation exist. When we finally cast those walls down, we will not only walk as the first-century Church walked, but we will exceed what they did! We have yet to see what can be done; and if we set our goal to do only as much as the book of Acts records, we are again limiting ourselves. We must realize that God will bring forth even more in this generation.
This restoration will exceed what is written in Acts concerning the birth of the Church. The Church at its birth will not be greater than the Church at the time when it comes forth without spot or wrinkle, ready to be presented as the Bride of Christ (Ephesians 5:27). The end of a thing must be greater than its beginning if God brought it forth, for the path of the just shines more and more unto the perfect day (Ecclesiastes 7:8; Proverbs 4:18).
God will not allow the world to excel with tremendous developments in every area while His Church lags behind with a diminishing revelation of the Lord. Rather, these are the days and seasons in which we believe for something that the world has never seen!
What God is doing in His remnant is an absolute reversal of what is presently being taught to the religious world. They are expecting and experiencing nothing more than a staying action, saying, “Hang on to what you have. Try to keep from being swept away in the falling away.” What kind of faith is that?
Daniel prophesied, “They that know their God will be strong, and do exploits” (Daniel 11:32). Let’s begin to anticipate those exploits! Even though the bulk of Christianity will fall away, that does not mean that we have to be among them.
We can be among the minority who rise up to become the witness to the whole world. We can be a part of the house of God which Haggai saw when he prophesied, “The glory of the latter house will be greater than the glory of the former” (Haggai 2:9).
We can be among those who experience what Peter saw when he said that the heaven must receive Jesus Christ and hold Him back “until the times of the establishment of all things spoken of by all the holy prophets since the world began” Acts 3:21. That was Peter’s message at the beginning of the Church. Should it not be the same now?
Focused on this generation are all the Words of all the prophets. The fulfillment of glory, the wonder that all the prophets saw, is to fall upon this generation. We must turn our minds and our hearts away from limitation—we are to walk with the nature of Jesus Christ, in His authority and power.
We will be a testimony not only of the dying Lamb, but also of the Lion of the tribe of Judah, for we have a two-fold ministry to fulfill. In contrast, the early Church had essentially only one. They were to suffer as their Lord had suffered. They lived at the dawn of the Church Age when there was but one picture to be presented: a suffering Savior who died and rose again as an eternal witness of our salvation, and a promise of His Kingdom to come.
In this day Christ is not coming to be persecuted again or to be rejected of men.
Christ is coming … to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all them that believe … II Thessalonians 1:10, KJV.
His coming is two-fold, and the fruit of the Spirit will enable us to see this aspect of it fulfilled. If you are looking for the rapture of the Church or for the Lord to catch you away, fine; keep looking for it. But don’t miss the fact that He is coming first to be glorified in His saints and to be admired in all them that believe—He is reproducing His very self within us. The love, the joy, the peace—everything of His nature—is being reproduced in us so that the world may have one testimony: they will see Christ in His many-membered Body first, before the time of the rapture, or the time when every eye sees Him and all the nations mourn at His coming (Revelation 1:7).
This end-time witness is the prophetic voice of God raised up in the Body of Christ so that when Christ comes, all will have had their warning. They will have had the end-time ministry that reveals Christ and brings to the whole world a Living Word with signs and wonders following. This is why the churches are receiving the Holy Spirit. Christ is coming to be glorified in His saints, to be admired in all them that believe. His coming, His Parousia, is upon us.
In this day the world will receive a two-fold ministry: there will be mercy, and there will be God’s wrath, or judgment. The ministry of judgment will be committed to the Church for the first time in nineteen centuries. God is going to allow His people to pull down everything of Babylon by their prayers of faith. His prophets will move in the earth, and He will smite down those who have connived to put the world into the hands of Satan. One by one, judgment is going to come to them. It begins at the house of the Lord (I Peter 4:17), but then it reaches out to the world.
The prophet Joel said: The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the Lord come. And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be delivered: for in mount Zion and in Jerusalem shall be deliverance, as the Lord hath said, and in the remnant whom the Lord shall call. Joel 2:31–32, KJV.
There will be deliverance in the remnant that is coming forth, but that remnant is going to be the mighty army of the Lord (Joel 2:2–11).
Judgment is one of the basic things that we will believe for and will minister, at the same time extending mercy. What a tremendous thing this is! God will have a people who are completely filled with the love of Jesus Christ; but when He tells them, “Pray against that Babylonian monstrosity,” they will pray against it, and it will be like the fig tree that was cursed. It will wither at the roots and die (Mark 11:12–14, 20–21).
We have not understood what the Lord meant when He said, “You shall say unto this mountain, ‘Be removed and be cast into the sea,’ and it shall be done” (Mark 11:23). But the Spirit of the Lord reveals that these mountains are the movements that have risen up like monuments, attracting men and claiming that they have the only word from God. They will be buried in the great sea of humanity. They will lose their testimony and they will come down, because God is going to see to it that it is done in this hour.
This is the time of pruning, the time of tearing down and building up (Jeremiah 1:10). God is bringing forth the mustard seed of faith that will mushroom in the hearts of the weak of the flock (Matthew 17:20; Luke 17:6), and they will become heirs of the promises and of the Kingdom that God has provided for them (James 2:5). It is not the proud and the arrogant who will walk in these promises—it is the poor of the flock, those whose hearts God has prepared, those in whom Christ is coming forth.
What faith, what signs and wonders the Lord wills to do to fill the whole earth! God is bringing us forth for only one reason: that we fulfill the purposes of God in the earth, that we be an instrument in His hand! What is to be done lies with Him. Let it be that we do not give birth to a program initiated in the human mind. Let there be no human reasoning or programming. Let us attempt nothing which we have designed and planned, saying, “This we can do and fulfill in ourselves.” Let God be the One who is truly glorified. Let us be what God wants us to be, in word and testimony, in an exhibition of the greater glory of the Lord Jesus Christ.
None of the fruit of the Spirit is designed for self-exaltation. People will not look at you and say, “My, that brother has so much love. How I admire him! He must be a wonderful person!” The fruit of the Spirit is given to bring glory to God. Each one is an attribute of God Himself being worked in you. This does not bring glory to you; instead, it brings honor to the Lord.
Goodness is listed as the sixth fruit of the Spirit. When the ruler came to Jesus and said, “Good Master,” Jesus replied, … Why callest thou me good? none is good, save one, that is, God. Luke 18:19, KJV. He wanted them to know that there is only one good, and that is God. What about the goodness of Christ? It was God’s goodness revealed in Him. There is no goodness, nor is there any mercy, apart from God; but He takes of His goodness and reproduces it in us.
Romans 15:13–14, ASV: Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, in the power of the Holy Spirit. And I myself also am persuaded of you, my brethren, that ye yourselves are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, able also to admonish one another. They were full of goodness—the goodness of God.
For the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth. Ephesians 5:9, KJV.
God’s goodness is not difficult to define, but it is something so strange to us that we may never completely understand it.
In Exodus 33 Moses prayed: … I beseech thee, shew me thy glory. And the Lord said, … I will make all my goodness pass before thee, and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before thee; and will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will shew mercy on whom I will shew mercy. And he said, Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live. And the Lord said, Behold, there is a place by me, and thou shalt stand upon a rock: and it shall come to pass, while my glory passeth by, that I will put thee in a cleft of the rock, and will cover thee with my hand while I pass by: and I will take away mine hand, and thou shalt see my back parts: but my face shall not be seen. Exodus 33:18–23, KJV.
The glory of God cannot be separated from this revelation of His goodness. It is when the goodness of the Lord comes before us that we have a revelation of His glory. Then what God is- is transmitted to us.
In the realm of spirit, whatever quality is inherent in a spirit is revealed when you see it. If you have ever seen demon spirits, you know that at times their shapes are very elusive. Sometimes they may have only eyes, only a mouth, or only color. Nevertheless, they have an amazing way of conveying exactly what they are. You know an unclean spirit because it seems to yell “unclean” at you. You know the spirit of envy because it radiates envy and jealousy.
A spirit proclaims what it is by the radiation of its very being. This is true whether it be a demon spirit or God Himself, who is spirit. What happened when God said to Moses, “I will cause My goodness to pass before you”? Moses saw the glory of the Lord. He saw what God is in His goodness. The goodness of God was revealed in the glory of the Lord.
If you want God’s attributes of goodness worked in your life, then wait before the Lord. When He becomes real to you by a vision or by His dealings upon your life, you suddenly become aware of His goodness. It breaks your heart. It overwhelms you. When the Spirit of the Lord moves, you feel His goodness. You realize how wonderful Jesus is. Why? What He is, He radiates. His goodness is an all-pervading thing. God is good!
The goodness of God is very sustaining. There is no fruit of the Spirit or gift of the Spirit called encouragement, is there? Then what is it that gives a person a lift and encourages him? It is the goodness of the Lord. David said, I had fainted, unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Psalm 27:13, KJV. What was it that kept encouraging and sustaining him? He believed to see the goodness of the Lord.
Romans 8:28 tells us that all things work together for good to those who love God. This reveals the goodness of God. His whole nature is colored with the fact that He is good, He is trying to do good to you. When that is real to you, it becomes the constant source of your encouragement.
The goodness of God will not make you appear to be a very religious or a super-special person; the goodness of God is a source of encouragement. It lifts up the downtrodden and oppressed. There is no greater answer for the fainting heart than to see this fruit of the Spirit come forth. Then God is glorified.
The seventh fruit of the Spirit is faithfulness. It can also be understood as steadfastness. It is very important that the faithfulness of the Lord be reproduced in you. Much of the effectiveness of your life is lost because you do not have the necessary staying power. How many times do you make good resolutions and start well to keep them, but then you fail because you do not have the steadfastness or the staying power to persevere?
Hebrews 10:35–36, KJV: Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompense of reward. For ye have need of patience (a better translation is “endurance”), that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise.
That is the answer; it will keep you from giving up just short of the goal. Do you ever feel as if you have completely expended yourself, or that you just ran out of gas and that you will never make it up the hill? That feeling is valid. You cannot overcome in yourself, but God can put something within you which supersedes all of your own human reserves. You can draw upon something that is in God: faithfulness. God is faithful in every Word He speaks.
We can never solve the problem of human unfaithfulness by self-discipline. God never intended us to. Instead, we are to believe in the faithfulness of the Lord.
God’s faithfulness must not remain apart from you. What is in Him flows into you, and you become faithful with His faithfulness.
By God’s faithfulness being wrought within you, you rise above the human limitation that constantly causes you to fail and draw back. Let God make you faithful with His faithfulness. Then you will not back down, you will not fail, and you will not miss your destiny. When God sets a truth before you, you will walk in it with all of your heart.
Psalm 89 repeatedly mentions the faithfulness of the Lord. This is the psalm of the covenant of David. David was loved by the Lord so much that God swore by His faithfulness to bless him. Even though David might not meet a certain set of conditions (the conditions were not even specified), God promised that He would bless him anyway. God did not swear by David’s faithfulness, but by His own faithfulness.
Psalm 89:1–2, KJV: I will sing of the mercies of the Lord for ever: with my mouth will I make known thy faithfulness to all generations. For I have said, Mercy shall be built up for ever; thy faithfulness shalt thou establish in the very heavens. Verse 5: And the heavens shall praise thy wonders, O Lord: thy faithfulness also in the congregation of the saints. Verse 8: O Lord God of hosts, who is a strong Lord like unto thee? or to thy faithfulness round about thee? Verse 24: But my faithfulness and my mercy shall be with him (with David): and in my name shall his horn be exalted. Verse 33: Nevertheless my lovingkindness will I not utterly take from him, nor suffer my faithfulness to fail.
Throughout this Psalm, God was declaring what He would do to David. Of course, all of these promises of faithfulness centered upon the Lord Jesus Christ, for He is the one who inherited them.
In stewardship, what is a man judged for? Moreover it is required in stewards, that a man be found faithful. I Corinthians 4:2, KJV. Even that quality is created in us by God. Our faithfulness actually is wrought by the Lord. This is a humbling fact. If something goes wrong, it is because we hold on to the old flesh; and if something goes right, we cannot take any credit for it because God did it all. Even in heaven when we are rewarded according to our faithfulness, we will have to pass all the glory back to Him and say, “Even that faithfulness was wrought in us by You, so that it might be wholly of grace.” Throughout the eternal ages God will receive all the glory, all the honor, and all the praise.
Faithfulness is wrought in us by God. If you have a tendency toward backsliding, ask your pastor or an elder to rebuke that spirit of backsliding and to pray for you. Then begin to seek after God’s faithfulness, and He will work it in you.
Perhaps there is a brother about whom you think, “That man is unstable. He will never make it.” If God works it in him, he will make it. He will stand true and faithful. The Bible tells of many a man who failed time and time again until God met him and worked it in him; then he stood faithful and true, never to be shaken again. It is God who does it; He puts something of His own self within us. Faithfulness is a wonderful ministry. His faithfulness is great, and His mercies are renewed every morning (Lamentations 3:22–23).
Next in the fruit of the Spirit is meekness. We do not consider God as being meek, yet in the revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ there is something most amazing that we must see.
Matthew 11:28–30, KJV: Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
What was He trying to tell us when He said, “I am meek and lowly of heart”? What does meekness really mean? Does it mean that we are to be a “Mr. Milquetoast”? The meek are to inherit the earth (Matthew 5:5); but the Mr. Milquetoasts do not receive anything in this world, either in the natural or in the spiritual. Jesus said, “The Kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force” (Matthew 11:12). Any man who really goes on in God has had something violent wrought by God in his soul. A fierceness burns there which is anything but what might commonly be called meekness.
What does God mean by meekness? Jesus was meek and lowly. Moses was meek above every man on the face of the earth (Numbers 12:3); yet he was not meek in the commonly accepted definition of that word. When he faced Korah and those who had rebelled, the earth opened up and swallowed his enemies (Numbers 16:1–35).
What is the meekness of the Lord? It is a type of humility, with an absence of the pride and arrogance which sets itself in its own way. A meek man is dedicated to walk simply in the ways of the Lord.
An excellent New Testament example of meekness is found in John the Baptist. Like Moses, he was a meek man. You may question his meekness, knowing how he stood in the desert calling the Pharisees a generation of vipers, and warning them to flee from the wrath of God (Matthew 3:7). That does not sound like a meek man. However, his clothing was made of camel’s hair and his diet was very simple, consisting of the fruit of the locust tree and wild honey (Matthew 3:4). He was a very humble man; but concerning him, Jesus asked the multitudes, “What did you go out in the wilderness to see—a reed shaking in the wind? a man clothed in fine raiment? Those who wear soft clothing are all in the palace. No, you did not go to find those things. You went to hear a prophet, and one who is more than a prophet. He was a burning and a shining light and you rejoiced for a while to walk in his light (Matthew 11:7–9; John 5:35). There was light in him because he was meek. He said of Christ, He must increase, but I must decrease. John 3:30. That is meekness. It is the decreasing of ourselves.
Matthew 5:3 says, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. What does it mean to be poor in spirit? Does it mean to be beaten down? No. There is a difference between the spirit of a goat and the spirit of a sheep. Both a lamb and the kid of a goat were considered clean animals in the sight of God and were acceptable for sacrifice. Both were Passover sacrifices, and goats were specified as the sin offering on the Day of Atonement (Exodus 12:5; Leviticus 16:5, 7–10). There is nothing wrong with a goat, and yet the Lord said that in His Kingdom He will separate the sheep from the goats (Matthew 25:31–46). The sheep will receive the Kingdom because they are poor in spirit.
Those who have a sheep spirit are so meek that they ask, “Lord, when did we clothe You, or feed You, or visit You in prison?” Then Christ answers, “Inasmuch as you did it to the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me” (Matthew 25:37–40). Sheep do not seek their own. There is poorness in their spirits instead of haughtiness, arrogance, or self-will. They do the will of God because their human spirits are brought to low ebb and the divine Spirit has taken over. They are motivated by God and live wholly for Him. They are the ones who will possess the earth!
A goat has too much spirit. The word tells us that Jesus was the Lamb; and as a lamb led to slaughter, so He opened not His mouth (Isaiah 53:7). When a lamb is slaughtered, his throat is cut and he bleeds to death without bleating even once. How does a goat die? Instinctively, he opposes death. He begins to snort and his whiskers tremble. Killing a goat is quite a job because he fights and cries. He finally dies; but how hard he dies!
Are you poor in spirit? Do you have a sheep spirit? Or are you dying the hard way? This wonderful spirit of meekness will help you to accept the dealings of God with more grace.
We are sometimes ashamed that we are not meek, that we are not poor in spirit; but when God deals with us about it we grumble! Then when He works it out, we feel very chagrined and ashamed; and we wish that we had trusted Him more. We wish that we had been more submissive. Do we need this fruit of the Spirit? Yes. We are told, Put on therefore, as God’s elect, holy and beloved, a heart of compassion, kindness, lowliness, meekness, longsuffering. Colossians 3:12, ASV.
Why did Jesus say of Himself, “I am meek and lowly”? It was because He had taken upon Himself the yoke, the burden of the Father.
When you take the yoke upon you and become meek and lowly, wanting only to do the will of God with all your heart, then you will learn of Him. You will see His meekness, His dedication, His lack of self-assertiveness and self-will. You will see only a submissiveness to God as He did the work of the Lord. This is what you want. You must put on the meekness of the Lord Jesus Christ so that you might wholly do His will.
But thou, O man of God, flee these things; and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness. I Timothy 6:11, ASV.
You are to follow after that meekness. If you do, the Lord will give it to you. Just because this fruit of the Spirit is near the end of the list does not mean that it is less needed than the others.
Isaiah prophesied of Jesus, Behold my servant, whom I uphold, mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth; I have put my spirit upon him: he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles. He shall not cry, nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be heard in the street. A bruised reed shall he not break, and the smoking flax shall he not quench: he shall bring forth judgment unto truth. He shall not fail nor be discouraged, till he have set judgment in the earth; and the isles shall wait for his law. Isaiah 42:1–4, KJV.
This Scripture is a perfect picture of the meekness of Christ. It is a singular devotion to do the will of God. Isaiah said of Christ, “He shall not fail nor be discouraged; He will not turn aside for His own interests. He will not let any personal cost cause Him to waver or turn aside.” In this meekness, His own spirit was in complete submission to the Lord. This is what the Lord wants in every one of us.
Peter instructed, But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear. I Peter 3:15, KJV.
Be ready at any time to speak, but always with meek-ness. Why with meekness? If someone asks if you are a Christian, do not meekly say, “I guess I’m a Christian.” That is not the meekness God is looking for. This meekness is a dedication to speak, not with an arrogance or self-will, but in complete dedication to the Lord. Speak with awareness that you are a child of God. Open your heart to speak the Word of the Lord regardless of the personal price. What you might gain or lose by speaking is not the point. The important thing is that you are ready to give a reason to every man that asks of you.
When Peter gave this instruction to the disciples, speaking the Word of the Lord was often a matter of life or death. In the Roman Empire, everyone was required once a year to say, “Caesar is lord.” If a person refused, it was considered treason and he could be killed. This is why Paul said, “No one can say, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ but by the Holy Spirit” (I Corinthians 12:3). A person might lose his life by saying that.
When someone asks for the reason of the hope that is within you, tell him, with meekness and fear, “The Lord lives.” This means that you are ready to pay any personal price that you would even die for Him. This kind of meekness makes martyrs. It gives you what it takes to lay down your life. Meekness is a synonym of courage, because it means the renouncing of your own way, even at the cost of death, in order to put His yoke upon you, to follow Him, and to do whatever He wants you to do.
Last of the fruit of the Spirit is temperance, or self-control. We might call it self-restraint. Is that a divine attribute? Yes, it is. It is in the Lord even though there is no Scripture which specifically says that He has self-control, just as there is no Scripture which tries to prove that God exists. Nevertheless, self-control is one of the things that exist in the nature of God. There is something about Him which caused Paul to write, For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind (the Greek says, “self-control”). II Timothy 1:7, KJV.
The Holy Spirit does not produce fear; He brings power, and love, and self-control or discipline. The discipline that we need, the self-control, is born of God.
Many a man has disciplined almost every area of his life, only to discover one notable thing that will not submit, one thing which he simply cannot control or handle. For example, the Word says that if a man does not bridle his own tongue, his religion is vain or worthless (James 1:26). A man’s ability to control what he speaks is a mark of perfection. The tongue is the unruly member, not easily controlled or harnessed. If a man can bridle his tongue, then he is able to subdue the whole man and bring him into subjection (James 3:2).
By the age of thirty, Alexander the Great had conquered most of the known world—all the great kingdoms: Babylon, Egypt, the Medo-Persian empire, India. He is reputed to have sat down on the banks of a river and wept, because there were no more worlds to conquer. He died only a few years later, a victim of his own lusts. He had great potential, but he could not control himself.
Each of us has something within that makes us fear. We are afraid, saying, “I know me. If it were not for the grace of God, this weakness could mean my destruction.” It is the Holy Spirit who gives us the victory and brings the whole man into subjection to Jesus Christ. This self-control, this discipline, this temperance is a wonderful fruit of the Spirit.
The Word tells us, “If any man thinks he stands, let him take heed lest he fall” (I Corinthians 10:12). Self-confidence only opens the door for a weakness of the flesh to rise up, causing you to stumble. But if you trust in the Lord with all your heart, the Holy Spirit will bring self-control, and there will be no occasion of stumbling in you.
How wonderful is the fruit of the Spirit! Study these attributes and pray over them. Let the Lord work them all in you. Let the Holy Spirit make them all real to you. Let God reproduce these things of His own nature within your life. When the fruit of the Spirit is manifested in your life, then the beauty of Jesus will be seen in you.