1st Fruit of the Holy Spirit
….Is the fruit that is required for the mastery of perfection—for without self-control, perfection is ruined by haste or fear, and love is neither impatient nor does it have any fear and God is love.
God alone has perfect self-control which allows Him to put up with even the Devil himself talking back to God in Job 2:4 “Skin for skin!” Satan replied. “A man will give all he has for his own life. But stretch out your hand and strike his flesh and bones, and he will surely curse you to your face.”
It is also the fruit that is required for the maintenance of perfection, and is the fruit that when it manifests out of you, allows you to partake of the Fruits of Maturity—Praise, Truth and Righteousness. The manifestation of self-control from you makes you suitable for selection as a candidate of Maturity. However, the manifestation of God’s Fruit of Self-Righteousness allows you to begin to take part in God’s ministry and the way God ministers….with perfect self-control.
For self-control is the Fruit of Self-Discipline and that is the Spirit that God gave us—when Paul wrote in 2 Timothy 1:7 – but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of self-discipline who controls Himself—and where the Holy Spirit displays the most control is when He will not speak on “His own, but say that which He has heard.” John 17:13
Imagine being able to sit back and just listen to what everybody is saying without interjecting, especially when you know half of what they are saying is not right or true, or outright blasphemous against those you love the most—The Father and The Son, and to hold your tongue and your peace and listen for what the Lord and the Lord are saying—knowing full well that what you’d say would stop whatever that is wrong—and be quiet—being satisfied in only sitting back and giving conviction with regards to sin, righteousness and judgement.
It is in the arena of giving conviction with regards to righteousness that the Holy Spirit helps us with self-control. As surely as the fruit of God’s righteousness gives us the right to taste and approve the words of Jesus, and know that they are the truth, so conviction brings out for us self-control—the self-control of the Holy Spirit, which is His Fruit [the fruit of the Spirit Gal 5:22].
The manifestation of this fruit of the Holy Spirit—that is, the Holy Spirit Himself now fills us to the overflow, and it is the Holy Spirit who has taken over our lives—is the Fruit of Self-Control over what we say. It is not what we do that has the creative effect in our lives—it is what we say. And at the level where God wants you to imitate Him and show the maturity of Jesus—being able to control what you say must come from the Holy Spirit—who makes Himself one with you, as Jesus is one with the Father; and through this oneness and sameness, the Holy Spirit begins to display His Fruit through you. It is not you displaying your fruits; it is the Holy Spirit displaying His Fruits. And the first fruit that the Holy Spirit Himself has is self-discipline giving self-control over His tongue.
James the Younger correctly recognised the problem of not being able to control the tongue—that is your speech in James 3:1-12….v8 but no man can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, ...He recognized the power of the tongue….v6 The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole person, sets the whole course of his life on fire and is itself set on fire by hell. And indeed he should know—for it was his tongue that recommended Acts 15:19 “It is my judgement, therefore, that we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God. Instead we should write to them, telling them to abstain from food polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from the meat of strangled animals and from blood…” It was his tongue that let slip Judaism back into the Church as something to be practised as an outward sign to the world of our holiness to the Lord; when the outward sign to be practised for the world to know that we are holy unto the Lord is to love one another as He has loved us. It is not even to love one another as you would like to be loved.—No!—Love one another as He has loved you—theoretically, die for one another as He died for us—and in reality of practice—find your intimacy with Him, so that you can truly say you have been loved by Him and therefore you can love one another as He has loved you.
James recognised the problem—but he did not have the answer. It is easy to see the problem—but to see the answer and to be the answer—that is a total different kettle of fish!
That is why the Holy Spirit—when He came upon the Disciples—took over the tongues of those disciples—just as he took away the speech of John the Baptist’s father, and did not let him utter another word of disbelief. Instead in Acts 2, 10 and 19 the Holy Spirit allowed men to speak in the new languages of the Spirit (tongues) to praise God and to prophecy—as He moved them. Extreme self-control over your tongue is what is called for—and with extreme self-control does come extreme accuracy.
The price of lack of self-control over your tongue can be costly—for because Jesus said.. "I tell you the truth, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea, and does not doubt in his heart but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done for him." Mark 11:23-24. Now at the immature level when you are still believing—well, not everything you say will happen—but at the level where you have come to know him—then, exactly what you say/have said can begin to happen. E.g. I was praying over our BMW that every moving part be renewed—so it was—I had to renew brakes, gearbox and a radiator system----Wow! I should have prayed – ‘Let every moving part be preserved.’ Oh the price of my loose tongue!
Likewise—even what is happening with the Dept. of Health - I kept saying, “They are unhappy with me.” Well, I am experiencing the degree of their unhappiness. Wow! Why does God allow this? -- So that we learn to value the Fruits of the Spirit.
If the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is the unforgivable sin—how much more valuable are the Fruits of the Holy Spirit—for is it not the Holy Spirit who moved for creation to take place--for Jesus to be borne--and for the Church to begin? It is the Holy Spirit who allows us to be grafted into Jesus and live, like a wild olive branch being grafted into the olive tree.
I can tell you—I have learnt and I am learning. The fruit of the self control of the Holy Spirit is to allow us to reign in our tongues, so that as we move from believers to knowers, we don’t pay the price of our loose words. It is the Holy Spirit’s food for us to help us avoid as much judgement as possible, for Jesus has said: Matthew 12:36-37 “But I tell you that men will have to give account on the day of judgement for every careless word they have spoken. For by your words you will be acquitted and by your words you will be condemned.”
That judgement isn’t just Judgement Day as such for us—for we know that there is no condemnation for us who are in Christ Jesus and we have Eternal life now. –That Judgement Day is called “Today” for us—for we are not given tomorrow by Jesus to worry about, nor are our yesterdays available because of the blood of Jesus. More than ever—now, as we continue our walk up the Mountain of God—the self-control that we need over every word of our speech is more important than ever….And because we are not yet perfect with all our words, continuous repentance, not only of our thoughts, motives and actions—but of our words is called for; as it is written in Proverbs 18:20-21 From the fruit of his mouth, a man’s stomach is filled; with the harvest from his lips he is satisfied. The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit.
The power of God—the creative power of God is let loose by our tongue—whether it is to create prosperity or disaster, life or death—and when our tongues are trained to excessive submissiveness—then we can be relied on, to only release the perfect word of the Lord, which is perfection.
Thus the practise of perfect self-control over our tongue begins with the gift of tongues, praise and prophecy—from the Holy Spirit—and He lets us use it in the hope that we would come to Him and ask Him for His counsel how to control the deadliest weapon ever given to man to control this earth. Remember Genesis 2:19 and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name.
God called us to listen to Jesus.
Jesus called us to follow and practise—all of that is to lead us to the Holy Spirit—the silent One—the One who does not speak on His own.—Because a good way to learn to be silent is to learn to listen, and in silence—neither good or bad is created.—In silence there is rest because you are neither enjoying or suffering from the good or the bad, and so in silence you have rest and salvation—as God has said: Isaiah 30:15 “In repentance and rest is your salvation.”
And so, as we learn to listen and practise what we have heard, to discover the truths in what is said—the good things—what I call the lollies—which also caused the 72 to rejoice after they were first sent out—Luke 10:17 The seventy two returned with joy and said, “Lord, even the demons submit to us in Your Name.” But Jesus v20 replied, “However do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”
And from that encouragement, we learn to ask the Holy Spirit for more counsel. And it is when the Holy Spirit sees your obedience to the Father’s command and your perseverance in following Jesus—even in His hard teachings, does the Holy Spirit begin to let you practise true excessive submissiveness—His type of submissiveness;—the submissiveness where you will not speak on your own but only what you have heard….That begins with an earnest desire to pray in tongues, and praise, and then to agree with the Holy Spirit—until all that comes out of you is “Amen, Holy ‘Spirit!”
When the words of Jesus and the Father are firmly entrenched in your heart and mind—written there by your eyes and your ears, the Holy Spirit is able to recall it to you at the right time—and with practice—in the right sequence. For the words spoken by the Father and Jesus can take care of every little detail in your life. Jesus demonstrated this or tried to demonstrate this to the disciples, at the feeding of the 5000 and 4000, when twice He just gave thanks—thanks for what the Father had already said: “They shall eat and have some left overs” 2 Kings 4:43, but as we learn—the disciples did not understand.
The yeast of the Pharisees, Sadducees and Herodians are teachings that make us rely on legalistic perfection by good works of rules, of disbelief and of scheming to acquire and take advantage—but the true seed is the Word of God and His words, and it is these words that bear the good harvest.
The failure of the Church to listen to Jesus and to listen to the Holy Spirit is the reason for the lack of power coming out of our mouths—power to heal, to deliver and to raise—but more importantly—power to speak the perfect word at the perfect time--self-control to achieve perfect results and accuracy. That is what the Holy Spirit is seeking to raise up and the training continues…..
AMEN HOLY SPIRIT! – THE FRUIT OF SELF-CONTROL!
