You are welcome to the last edition of the series of teachings on Family Matters. From the beginning of these series, we have been able to examine the Founder of the family, which is God Himself. We equally noted that man and God are the parties involved in building a crisis-free family. We have also been able to look at the various materials for building.
Today, we shall be looking at another wonderful material for building a crisis-free family: The Fruit of the Spirit.
In interpersonal relationships like the family, one has to know how to avoid conflicts and live at peace with one’s spouse, children, parents and other extended family members. All things are yours: a family devoid of conflicts but ridden with peace inclusive. Such a family is known as a crisis-free family. This is your heritage in Christ. God has vowed to give you peace always and by all means, so you must plug into it, by playing your part as it is in the Word of God. Now the Lord of peace himself give you peace always by all means. The Lord be with you all (2 Thessalonians 3: 16).
Material for Building the Fruit of the Spirit:
The fruit of the Spirit equips you for peaceful and profitable coexistence with your family members. These help you to be able to live with every kind of character trait and influence them positively. This is actually the character of God, which makes God to be able to bear with all our idiosyncrasies and still reach out to us as His children. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law (Galatians 5:22-23).
Love – Total, unconditional, sacrificial and unending affection. This makes you to have strong regard and attachment to family members. No one hates to be loved. Love is able to cover a multitude of sins, and seek the welfare of every family member.
Joy – Gladness, delight, exuberance about life. Joy is a state of proud and happy satisfaction, a feeling of extreme happiness and satisfaction. This causes you to look ahead to the future, with great expectation of better happenings in your family. A joyful man is an optimistic man.
Peace – This is the state of rest, quietness, freedom from disturbance. This stems from your trust in God to take care of you and your family and to also change whatever habit or situation needs to be changed. Peace in the family starts from the heart. You cannot have peace in your family, if you lack peace in your heart and personal life.
Long Suffering – It is patience, willingness to stick with something until it is accomplished. This is born out of the conviction that all will be well, hence you refuse to give up until your desired expectation happens.
Gentleness – Kindness, amiability, easy to get along with, always willing to help others. Being easy to get along with is one of the most effective ways to be a blessing to your family members, not thoughtlessly harsh or severe. This makes you approachable and disposed to always be of help; to always supply your own quota of assistance. Whenever there is a challenge, seek for ways to be involved in solving it.
Goodness – Benevolence, always willing to give to others. You are always willing to give of your time, substance, ideas, spiritual input, talents and abilities to the enhancement of the family. This means that selfishness is absent.
Faithfulness – Loyal, firm in adherence to promises, consistent and reliable. Such a person sees family as being fundamental, hence sticks to it to play his own part of making it work and succeed.
Meekness – Being teachable, correctable and humble. This talks about the absence of pride. Pride is the devil’s nature; therefore wherever pride is missing, the devil will also be missing. It is meekness that enables you to accept your faults and even apologize on someone else’s behalf. You are able to learn more of what you don’t know or even more of what you thought you already know.
Temperance – Self-Control. With this, you keep your feelings and emotions under surveillance and proper control. This will continually remind you not to talk and act the way you think all the time. It helps you to listen more and therefore able to proffer better solutions for issues at hand.
How do you Develop the Fruit of the Spirit:
You need to know this because at new birth you received a deposit of the righteousness of God, which made you become a tree of righteousness to bear fruits of righteousness. The fruit of the Spirit are actually fruit of the regenerated human spirit.
Seek God’s Word that is relevant to the particular fruit, which you want to develop. God and His Word are one, hence His character is resident in His Word.
Praying in the Spirit
Your spirit is energized, thereby stimulating the growth of the fruit of the Spirit.
Seek for opportunities to consciously exercise yourself in these areas. This also means, to exercise yourself unto godliness.
Benefits of the Fruit of the Spirit:
No law, principle or doctrine can stand against your family peace and fulfilment. This literally means that the devil cannot have a hold (whether legal or otherwise) over your family (Galatians 5: 22, 23).
God’s presence is established in your family, because God is love (1 John 4: 8, 16).
Liberty becomes the hallmark of your family (2 Corinthians 3:17).
In conclusion, employing the fruit of the Spirit makes for marital bliss and all your marital woes will be over, because a crisis-free family becomes your portion.
For you to have the fruit of the Spirit in order to have what it takes to have a crisis-free family, you need the Master Builder, who is able to build all things. For you to be born again, you need to say this prayer of faith:
“Dear Lord Jesus, I come to You today as a sinner. I believe You died for my sins and rose on the third day. Forgive me of my sins. I accept you as my Lord and Saviour. Make me a child of God today”. Thank You for saving me. Now I know I am born again!
Congratulations! You are now born again!
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