Month: April 2018

Malus Pumila and the Fruit of the Spirit

/ Mike Farley / Leave a comment

Today I want to look at the fruit of the Spirit found in Galatians 5. If you grew up in church or if you have kids you have taken to church, you might know the song about how bananas, grapes, apples, and other produce are not the fruit of the Spirit. But before we get to the fruit of the Spirit I want to talk about an actual fruit. This ride might get a little bumpy so hold on…

A malus pumila produces a very specific kind of fruit. There is really no other fruit like it on earth. There are some other fruits that can look kind of like it. Some have similar shapes, and some have similar taste but there is really nothing like the fruit of a malus pumila. Let me try and describe it to you. The fruit of malus pumila is sweet but sometimes a little sour, round, usually red, juicy, firm, crisp, and most of all delicious. I honestly do not eat enough of the malus pumila fruit which is sad because it is readily available being an apple and all.

See I could have just said the fruit of an apple tree (malus pumila) is an apple but by describing it I gave you all its features. I told you what you are getting. When you have an apple you don’t have red, or sweet, or crisp. Instead, you have an apple that is those things. Now taste is somewhat subjective so you might not like apples and that’s OK but I think you get my point – the description is the thing. So, what is the fruit of the Spirit?

The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, and self-control. These are not fruits of the Spirit. There is not a fruit of love, or joy, or peace, and so on. I would argue that there is one fruit and it is Christlikeness. Why would I say this? Simply put because I think God says it.

Romans 8:29 says that we are being conformed to the image of the Son. God’s purpose is to make us more like Christ. That is one reason the Holy Spirit lives in us. We are to walk by the power of the Holy Spirit. The same Spirit that raised Christ from the dead now lives in us. We are to be more like Jesus. 1 John 2:6 says we are to walk as Jesus walked. Jesus walked in love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, and self-control. He walked according the Spirit (Luke 4:1) and so should we.

We should read Galatians 5:22-23 and see a list not of individual fruits to be cultivated but a singular fruit that is a wonderful thing. We should see a list of things that should describe us and things that we are to be. Peter says that we have all we need for a life of godliness in us and this is because the Holy Spirit is in us producing His fruit of Christlikeness which is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, and self-control. If we find that we are short peace for example, we don’t need to pray for the fruit of peace we need to pray for the Holy Spirit to strengthen us and to make us more like Christ in that area. We need to confess our need for Him to continue to produce His fruit. Thinking about the list differently changes it from a list of things I need to do to a list of gifts I can have to make me more like Jesus and that is the goal. Jesus is the prize the descriptions of that fruit are not. If we are just chasing the descriptions, we run the risk of missing the mark and we can quickly fall into legalism. We are empowered by the Spirit by Christ to be more like Christ.

Just a thought,

Mike

Holy Spirit – It or Him?

/ Mike Farley / Leave a comment

What is a person? Is the Holy Spirit an “It” or a “Him?” According to theology books, a person is one that has intelligence, emotions, and will and according to Charles Rye since the Holy Spirit has all of these He must be a person. Scripture does not leave room for the Holy Spirit to be anything less than a person. He has intelligence as seen in 1 Cor 2:10-11 where it says that He teaches believers. He has emotions which can be seen the classical example of Ephesians 4:30 where we are advised not to grieve Him. Finally, He has a will which can be seen in 1 Cor 12:11. Throughout the New Testament, and partially in the Old we see that the Holy Spirit is a person. As to why this is important that is akin to asking what is the difference between dating and marriage?

If we think about it from that perspective, we can see that the Holy Spirit being a person means that we are intimately connected to Him and Him to us. He is not a force that we play around with in order to gain something for ourselves but someone that we owe devotion to. R.A. Torrey in his book The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit says we should be asking the question “How can the Holy Spirit get more of me?” If we ask this question with the understanding that He is a person we stop trying to get and start surrendering. If the Holy Spirit is a person and has a will we must submit to that will. If He has emotion, then we must involve feelings into our relationship. If He has intelligence we must seek His guidance. If, however, He is merely a force or a thing then we can date Him continually just trying to get what we want out of the relationship. The problem is we cannot marry an it.

When we move from dating to marriage we submit to the other person. We place their wants and desires above our own. We stop trying to get something from the relationship and seek to give to the other person. We make a commitment to love and serve the other. In our relationship with the Holy Spirit when we move from “it” to “Him” we do a similar thing. We start seeking His ways and want to serve instead of receiving. This is not to say that we marry the Holy Spirit because we are the bride of Christ, but I do not feel the analogy is too farfetched as it pertains to understanding the dynamics of a relationship with a person.

 

Just a thought,

Mike

The cat is out of the bag

/ Mike Farley / Leave a comment

The cat is out of the bag. God told Adam not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. But we all know the how that went. Adam and Eve ate and now we all suffer. We now have knowledge of good and evil. So, what do we do with this knowledge?

Well, there are two things we need to do with it according to Scripture. First, we must be wise about what is good and innocent of evil (Rom 16:19) and second, we must be trained to distinguish between good and evil. I must admit this seems a little confusing because Paul writes that we should be innocent of evil and the author of Hebrews says we should be able to able to distinguish between the two (Hebrews 5:15). If we need to be able to know the difference, then doesn’t that mean we won’t be innocent of evil? What’s the deal?

Have you ever heard the expression I know enough to be dangerous? It is like this – I know enough about how electricity works to know that if something goes wrong I need help. If my power shuts off I know to check the breaker box but if that is not it then I need help. The same with good and evil. We need to know enough to know what is right and wrong but not so much about what is wrong that we actually partake in it.

There are some people who think they should be completely cut off from the world and anything worldly, but I don’t think we should go that far with it. We need to know about things, but we need to make sure we are not intimately involved with those things. I can know there is a crack house in town without going there. I can know what is going on there without participating in. I can know that people who are going in that place are going to get drugs without getting drugs myself. I can know these things and then if someone tells me they were at that house I can safely assume they might need to go to rehab.

We need to know right and wrong because the cat is out of the bag. We have to know what is right and what is wrong. We learn this in large part by studying what is right, that knowledge of right helps give us an understanding of what is wrong.

Now we can use examples like a crack house but really it needs to get closer to home. God wants us to study the right things so much that He is able to shine a light on the dark things and we easily see it. God wants to sanctify us and that is just a fancy way of saying He wants to set us apart or clean us. We are sanctified in Christ but there is also an ongoing process where God strips away the old man and filth so that we are able to walk in the new life He has given us in Christ.

God wants you to study the right things so that when you are walking outside of His best for you there is a tug that makes you realize it. That tug is an awareness of the Holy Spirit saying, “hey remember what is right?” When you get upset and start dropping F-Bombs like you’re the star of an HBO show God wants you to have so studied the right things that you feel the presence of the Holy Spirit in you saying “really?”

Like I said the cat is out of the bag. We now have the knowledge of good and evil so now we have to study. Let’s study the right things.

Just a thought,

Mike