As Christians, we've never allowed the Holy Spirit to develop the character of Christ in us. This is the work of the Holy Spirit that comes by our yielding ourselves over to Him. This is the most difficult part of "working out our own salvation" that we encounter.
The receiving of Jesus as our Lord and Savior has insured our eternal salvation. This isn't about whether we are saved or not, but how we yield and allow Jesus to actually live through us. The manner we lived in the flesh and the walk we took in our unsaved condition are difficult to rise above. It's not that we don't wish to walk in the Spirit, it's more that we don't know how to.
We've depended on ourselves and the world for everything for most of our lives. And, now we're learning to surrender ourselves over to something completely foreign to us. We deal with the more obvious things in our lives fairly quickly, but are slower to deal with the hidden nature. We change our drinking, drugging, cussing or whatever we were involved in quickly after being saved.
It's the personality or the habits of our old self that we have trouble dealing with. We mostly find ways to cover up these things in church or public and don't change them.
This is the fruit of the Spirit Paul talks about in Galatians 5:22-23. You have already become the fruit bearing branch from John 15. The law of Genesis 1:11-12 says that everything produces after its kind. As the first fruits, Jesus reproduced exactly what He is, a new creature, in us. We were born again into the same creation that Jesus was as Spirit filled, God life and sons of God. The very life of God was reproduced in us by His Word and His Spirit.
In one sense, it's no different from children born in the natural sense. The moment they're born, they are humans. They don't need to be taught how to be human because they are humans. We begin teaching and training them the very character of humanity. They must be taught how to walk, talk, eat, read, count and get along with other humans. None of these things are natural to them and must be taught to them. Children learn from their parents to become what they see and hear. Everything they are subject to makes a difference in their development. The very same principle is true in the Body of Christ. Most of us have learned more from religion and the world than from the Word and the Holy Spirit.
We were born with all the attributes of humanity and we were also born with all the attributes of our Heavenly Father. Somehow, we've reached the conclusion that "If God wants it done, then He will do it." Nothing can be further from the truth though. We know God wants it done, so why are we still walking as mere men and not getting it done? The fruit of the Spirit comes by yielding all the things the world has trained us to do, over to Him. This includes not only sinful things, but natural things.
We have a natural personality that includes our disposition and temperament. Each of us has a different attitude towards others depending on how we were trained and raised in our fellowship with others. For instance, those raised in the deep South and those raised in New England both speak English, but the way we speak sounds very different. This has to do with our culture and environment.
I had an explosive temper before being saved and found that I still had it after being saved. As I began yielding to the Holy Spirit, I learned how to yield to gentleness and meekness of the Spirit. This is part of the old nature and training of the natural man that abides in the carnal man. I was trained and brought up that way.
I yielded my smoking habit over to the Lord shortly after being saved. The Spirit didn't deliver me from breathing, only from breathing cigarette smoke. As I yielded that part of myself to Him, the Holy Spirit manifested His "fruit" in place of what Galatians called the "works of the flesh." I still live in this flesh and blood body, but the life of the Spirit is presently in more control than the old habits of the world's training.
I am bearing more and more of the character of Christ in my body by yielding my old nature over to the Holy Spirit. We've all known Christians who still speak and act unbecomingly who we've decided must not "be really saved." We've concluded that they're not really Christians because of the way they behave and talk.
This isn't necessarily true, but results from their not yielding the nature of their personality over to receive not only the Life of the Spirit, but the very nature and character of the Spirit. They aren't bearing fruit to make the seed (the Word they preach) attractive to the hearer. Therefore, "The seed (Word) falls on hard, stoney soil and bears no fruit," according to Mark 4.
Sometimes we wonder why our witness has no effect on others. It's mostly because we don't make our "Fruit of the Spirit" attractive to the hearer. When we appear stiff, stern, without joy, bound by religious traditions and without having attractive fruit, then who would want to be reproduced in that image? The meat or fruit of the apple is attractive. The bright red skin and sweet, enticing white crisp of the apple entices people to partake of the "fruit." The entire purpose of the meat of the apple if to nourish and protect the seed. Once the fruit or meat of the apple is eaten, the seed is revealed to renew and replenish the same kind of apple and complete the cycle.
You are the reproduction of what Jesus (the original seed) has brought to life. Jesus, the Word Himself, has reproduced Himself in us. Now, we must go into all the world, like He did, and preach the Gospel according to Mark 16:15. Why? Because the Word of God is the seed that brings forth the new creation! Listen carefully to what 1Peter 1:23-25 (Amplified) says, "You have been regenerated (born again) not from a mortal origin (seed, sperm) but from One that is immortal by the everliving and lasting Word of God." This is the seed that produces the new creation or the new creature and is the fruit of the Vine found in John 15. 1Peter 1:24-25 go on, "For all flesh (mankind) is like grass, the grass withers and the flower drops off. But the Word of the Lord (divine instruction, the Gospel) endures forever, And this Word is the Good News which is preached to you."
The Word and Gospel that was preached to you has produced the same Spirit and life in you like it did in Jesus. You're not Jesus, but you came from the same seed. When you pick and apple and remove the seed from it and plant it, it will produce another apple tree. The same kind of apple seed will reproduce the same apple tree every time. It will never produce anything but another apple tree. That apple tree will bear the same kind of apple. It's not the same apple, but another that is just like it.
Most orchard owners take care of their fruit trees because if they're not cared for properly, then they will not bear "good fruit." The same seed is inside the apple, but the "fruit" of the apple is undesirable to eaters. This is exactly what happens in our Christian lives when the same seed (the Word) has born the exact same thing, but the fruit (the life of the believer) is unattractive and not desirable to be partaken of by those hearing. The seed within them doesn't reproduce and these people seldomnly lead others to the new birth.
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