Jackie's Journey: Whose Spirit Is in Control?

Galatians 5:16 "Walk in the Spirit"

Which fruit of the Sprit do you manifest most?

Galatians 5:22-23
God's Spirit	The Destroyer's
Love	Self-first
Joy	Self-pity
Peace	Discord
Patience	Anger
Kindness	Rudeness
Goodness	Disobedience
Faith	Unbelief
Gentleness/Humility	Pride
Christ-control	Sin-control

Galatians 5:16 is a command…”(You) walk in the Spirit”. 

Ephesians 5:18 is also a command …“(You) be filled with the Spirit”.  

How would you characterize your walk with God?  

      Do you live in “up and down” defeat or consistent upward victory?

“God commands us to be filled with the Spirit; and if we aren’t filled, it’s because we are living beneath our privilege!”  (D.L. Moody)  It is important to God that we understand how to walk with Him, or He would not have given such direct and clear commands.  The understood “YOU” in these commands places the responsibility on us to do our part.  The provision to walk in the Spirit has been given.  We either have all of the fruit or none of the fruit of the spirit!  “Fruit” is singular”, not plural “fruits”. Gal. 5:22

We are making decisions continually in our daily walk through life.  Our choices determine our Christian walk.  The “What Now” or point of decision at the Y in the road is a moment-by-moment process.  We either choose the destroyer and sin and lead a defeated life, or we choose the fruit of the Spirit and the joyful Christian life, receiving all that is ours in Him. (Galatians 5:19-21)    

Our choice in that moment of decision determines our course and puts one of the two Spirits in control of us!  We cannot serve two masters! 

Whose Spirit has control of your life right this minute??

Years ago when considering the choice at the fork in the road of my Christian life,  my husband asked,

“Jackie, what is the purpose of joy?”

What?  What do you mean?...

 I thought it was a really good question and answered, “let me think about it a moment.”  Without that moment’s hesitation, he proceeded to go through each of the fruit with its purpose and to my amazement I found it gave new meaning to the command to maintain my “walk in the Spirit!!”

This is what I learned that day and continue to learn daily:

Love is for others first! “If we loved our neighbor as we love ourselves” we would have no need for any of the other fruit! (Gal.5: 14) But we don’t!

Joy is the reward for giving love away; the spontaneous enthusiasm of my spirit when my soul is obedient to God’s instruction. (Psa. 16:11)

Peace is the absence of turmoil; it maintains harmony with God and man.

Patience is what makes accepting a difficult situation from God without giving Him a deadline to remove it… doable! (Rom.5: 3-4)

Meekness   puts my energy under God’s control, when I yield my personal entitlements, rights and expectations to Him. (Psa. 62:5)  

Kindness is a gift to another to show the person’s worth. (Jn. 3:16)

Faith is the absence of doubt; facing fear and turning it into a God-given desire.  (Pro. 10:24)

Goodness is given so others can trust Him in us - His integrity and virtue.

Gentleness is magnified in the presence of pride.  It repels arrogance.

Christ-control is instant obedience to the initial promptings of God’s Spirit. (Gal. 5:24,25)

The absence of any of these in my daily walk is a signal to me.  If I am impatient, unkind, worried, fearful, and angry or in turmoil, I know I have made a wrong choice at the point of decision.  Somewhere I sacrificed my fellowship with God!  I go back, acknowledge my wrong response or decision, confess it by name and regain my peace and all the other fruit that comes with it!

How careful are you in your decision making process? 

Do you guard your responses?

 Little “decision-making” children are watching and learning!

All Or Nothing Kind of Girl!

For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. 2 Peter 1:5-7

I tend to be an all or nothing kind of girl. 

I am either “all in” or “terribly off”!   My whole life, modeled to me by my father, has been an ebb and flow of times completely disciplined to times of complete splurging.  Whether it is exercise, quiet times, eating, having fun, or studying, I can look back over my life and see this “generational” thread.  I can see the blessing and the curse of this way of living.

This summer I have been eating what I call the “Cancer Scare Diet”.  This form of eating is extreme, but has given me fantastic results in the past.  Not only that, but I look healthy, feel good and have lost weight!  There is a silver lining!  I eat most of the loving food God gave us to eat – minus, of course, wonderful fruit (too much sugar).  So I eat loads of veggies, seeds and nuts.  Kind of boring, I know.  But my taste buds have changed and it all does taste good to me.  Recently, I have added back in fish and occasionally white meat because I need amino acids for a treatment I have been doing.  So basically some would say I am eating “The Caveman Diet” or “The Adam and Eve diet”. 

Last Saturday after four months of food boredom and feeling a bit sorry for myself, I broke down and ate whatever sounded good to me.  I had potato chips, Pirate Booty, peanut butter, a health chocolate shake, chicken sandwich meat, and crackers.  A lot of all of this – in one sitting!  No sugar though!  I lacked self-control to the point of making myself physically ill.  I was a glutton, but… just … could … not … eat … another … vegetable!

The very next day, I paid for it – BIG time!  I got food poisoning.  For a full 24 hours, I felt the effects of my eating.  I could barely walk and I could barely make it to the bathroom quick enough – if you get the gist!  I saw the effects first hand of my lack of self-control and eating spree.  I had to miss a couple of fun activities with the kids and stay close to home.

I had been tempted by all the amazing food in my pantry the rest of my family eats!

I lost my will power – my self-control. 

Everything in me knew better, but I didn’t care.  Do you ever feel like that?  About food, money, thoughts, words, etc.?  James 4:17 says “To one who knows the right thing to do and does not do it, to him it is sin”.  Yes, I sinned and in a word was a true glutton – one of the seven deadly sins.

Now, some of you, friends, would say to me, I am being a bit over-the-top.  I can have a day off now and then. Here is what the Lord taught me through this.  On this day, I made a choice.  I choose the things not good for my body, His temple.  My choices will not help my current “condition”.  I chose something I know as “wrong” and with the choice came consequences.  God in His infinite wisdom created “natural consequences” as a form of teaching us. 

Natural consequences become the helpful teaching time with my children, as well.  We have been reaping the benefits of this God-given parenting tool.  If you cut your hair with the play scissors, your bangs may take months to grow out.  If you take your iPad out of the case and it drops on the ground, it will break.  If you don’t take a jacket and it rains, you will get wet.  If you forget to study, you will get a failing grade on the test.  And so on . . .

So in my situation, I am the child and God is my Father.  If you eat the foods not designed for your body, they will do harm and you will be sick.

Did I learn my lesson?  Absolutely!  I am back eating veggies again.  I just decided to try to get some variation so I don’t get too bored, and this will help ease my temptations.  But during this time, I also heard God clearly that He wants me to heal.  My body is an amazing creation He made to heal itself.  I am standing on those promises.

I can see why self-control is in the long list of fruit of the Spirit.  Being an all or nothing kind of girl, I know I need all of the fruit to work together.  When I have self-control, I am patient, which makes me kinder and more gentle.  This leads me to be more loving to others (and myself) and helps me focus on goodness.  Bringing about a sense of joy and faith to usher me into the God-given peace I so desperately want.  And it all starts with self-control for me!

So in what ways have you lost your self-control?

What did you do to “bounce” back into the fruit of the Spirit?