Your past is a place of REFERENCE, not a place of residence.

CHOOSE TO CHANGE… no longer live for yourself…

But live for Christ!
Galatians 2:20

20 ‘I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live in faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me

When God becomes the centre… then the process of your transformation begins…

Today, what is valuable in our lives before God is not:

your ability;

your gifts;

the work of your flesh (what you can and can’t do);

What counts for God is the fruit of the Spirit in us believers…

The fruit of the Spirit is a kind of:

Reward…

It’s the result of how much the Holy Spirit can do in me and in you…

There’s a list in Galatians 5:22.

22 ‘But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.’

These 9 characteristics are the fruit of the Spirit, which we must produce day by day.

23 Against these things there is no law.

24 Those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and lusts.

The fruit of the Spirit are not isolated characteristics, but a reflection of the inner transformation caused by God. They are produced by the Holy Spirit, not by human endeavour.

These nine characteristics show us what God and Jesus are like, and God wants us to be transformed to become more and more like Jesus.

Romans 8:29

For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, so that He might be the firstborn among many brothers.’

Colossians 3:10 ‘and have taken on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge, in the image of its Creator’

When we look at this fruit…

I’m not well before God because:
Because I’m on this side talking;
Because I have a spectacular family;
Because I know how to play…
Because I have a title …
God looks at our hearts…

I’m fine when today I’m more like Jesus than I used to be:

Yesterday
Last week
Last year
How can we produce this fruit?
Repenting of my sins… of thinking that I am me…
Being filled with the Holy Spirit…

Psalm 84:10 – One day in your courts is better than a thousand anywhere else…What does God want from you and me?

Being filled with the Spirit…

Galatians 5:25

if we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.
There is a difference between living and walking…
Living is to be saved, it has to do with a question of being…
Walking with my decision, my choices and my attitudes…

The fruits of the flesh will always lead us away from God’s word, from God’s will, from the principles of the pure, unblemished gospel.
As Christians, we need to submit and surrender to God, so that these nine characteristics are seen in us, and everyone around us can see the change.
This is proof that we really are God’s children and that the Holy Spirit is at work in our lives.
We can ask God to help us develop one of these things more than another, i.e. perhaps we are really angry with someone and feel that we can never forgive them.
This is a time when we can ask God to help us with this problem.
May God bless us all in the Name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, our Redeemer, and may the peace of God’s Holy Spirit reign in us every day!