But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, self-control. Against such things there is no law. Galatians 5:22-23 HCSB
A couple days ago, my husband and I ventured out about an hour away from our home to take my mother-in-law to lunch for her birthday. We had a nice time and a good meal. On the way home, however, my mom’s sitter notified us that someone had come onto our property and crawled under my husband’s truck.
My first thought was this person was stealing a catalytic converter as those seem to be hot ticket items amongst thieves, but this person actually punctured the gas tank in order to steal gas. Seems as though he had run out just up the road from our house and had been unsuccessful at getting someone to give him gas.
The sad thing is if we’d been home, my husband would have gladly given him gas or taken him to get gas or whatever we needed to do to help him out. He’s done that before. But we now live in a world where many people are walking by the flesh and not the Spirit. They simply take what they want.
In Galatians 5:6 Paul tells us if we walk by the Spirit, we will not satisfy the desires of the flesh. Simply put, we will do what is right and not what we want to do if what we want to do is wrong. He goes on to describe walking by the flesh as being obvious. He gives examples such as sexual immorality, moral impurity, promiscuity, idolatry, sorcery, hatreds, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambitions, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and anything similarly.
If you read that list, you will see that many of the behaviors mentioned above can lead to illegal activity. In the headlines today a local teacher was charged with inappropriate conduct with a juvenile. I read several articles where people were shot as a result of a fight. There could have been envy, there was definitely strife, hatred dissensions involved. One of these was at a barroom, there was probably drunkenness and carousing involved.
Walking by the flesh cannot only cause us to go to hell, but it can also cause us to spend at least a part of our life here on earth in jail. I spent a lot of time in my career in jails bringing people in and I was always glad to know that I would be leaving there once the paperwork was done. I never wanted to stay any longer than I had to.
But there is no law against walking by the Spirit. There is no law against loving your neighbor as you love yourself, Jesus commands this of us. There is no law against having joy and peace in your heart no matter your circumstances. In fact, in Philippians 4:6-7 we are told if we don’t worry and we surrender our troubles to God, we will have a peace that surpasses understanding. There are no laws against treating someone with patience, kindness, goodness and gentleness.
Having faith that God’s got control of whatever you are dealing with and will handle it appropriately can keep you out of trouble. Giving it all over to Him and trusting Him with it will keep you from doing something you shouldn’t. That leads to self-control. Self-control is something that is lacking in people like the young man who needed gas.
There are two things that keep me from doing certain things and one is I don’t want to go to jail. The biggest reason why I refrain from unlawful behavior or behavior that disobeys God’s commandments is I don’t want to go to hell.
Take a good look at your life. You may not be committing any type of behavior that can land you in jail, but are you doing things that can send you to hell?
Walk by the Spirit so you will not fulfill the desires of the flesh. Do it God’s way.
I spent many years talking to people who only considered God when they found themselves in jail. As soon as they were released, they would begin their errant ways all over again. I always thought it was sad that they didn’t know the peace and joy they could have in Him.
God is a full-time commitment. He is so much better than the alternative. Trust in Him today.
Have a great day!