Don’t you yourselves know that you are God’s sanctuary and that the Spirit of God lives in you? If anyone destroys God’s sanctuary, God will destroy him; for God’s sanctuary is holy and that is what you are.    1 Corinthians 3:16-17

It is so important that we not allow the devil to infiltrate our lives that I’ve decided to spend some time on this subject. Over the last couple of days, we talked about how the devil can only infiltrate any dwelling or relationship through a person or persons. We cannot control what other people do, but we can control what we do. We spend lots of money to secure buildings. We buy alarm systems, security cameras, and bars on windows and doors. But how secure is your sanctuary or your temple.

The Bible tells us we are God’s sanctuary, or some versions say God’s temple. Romans 12:1 tells us that we are to present ourselves as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God. I hope you are doing that and if you are I hope you understand the importance of security. I’m not talking about physical security. I am talking about spiritual security. We will talk about spiritual warfare in a few days, but today I want to talk about our spiritual security.

Yesterday we looked at Galatians 5:19-21. Today, I want to look at verses 22-26. Paul said in verse 5:16 that if we walk in the Spirit, we will not satisfy the desires of the flesh. The two oppose each other and we can’t walk in the flesh and the Spirit at the same time. In Galatians 5:22 Paul says that the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, self-control. What does he mean when he says the fruit of the Spirit? Well, he means the end result from walking in the Spirit. If you plant an apple tree you want it to produce apples. If you plant an orange tree you want it to produce oranges. The fruit of the Spirit is what we produce as we grow in our Christianity. We start out as baby Christians or mere seedlings, but we should grow and blossom into a mature Christian that produces the fruit of the Spirit. We are sort of like Spirit trees, if you will.

Yesterday, I mentioned that it was obvious when people are Chrisitians, just as it’s obvious when they are not Christians. But when we start out as new Christians, there may be some old habits in us. We are works in progress. None of us are perfect. But as we grow, we should begin to produce the fruit of the Spirit. As we walk in the Spirit and do not satisfy the desires of our flesh we grow as Christians. We mature.

As we mature, we produce the fruit of the Spirit. Just as Paul said the works of the flesh are obvious, so are the works of the Spirit in our lives. It produces all those things mentioned above. These are the things that will keep the devil from infiltrating our lives.

The more we practice these things, the better we will become at them. The more you show love, the more you will want to show love. Showing love leads to joy. Once you have the kind of joy that comes from walking in the Spirit, you will never want to be without it.

Once you experience the peace that passes all understanding spoken of in Philippians 4:7, you will want to keep that forever. Having peace and joy in your life will increase your patience. These will in turn produce kindness, goodness, faith and gentleness. These will lead to better self-control.

We go to great lengths to be sure that our physical bodies are safe. But Jesus said in Matthew 10:28, “Don’t fear those who kill the body but are not able to kill the soul; rather, fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.” He’s telling us to fear God. Only God can condemn our bodies and souls to hell.

I believe many of us fear the home invader armed with a weapon more than we fear God. This is a huge mistake. The most they can do is kill us and send us to heaven. Win, win. But if the devil invades our soul, we will spend eternity in hell.

Whatever you do, don’t neglect to safeguard your sanctuary. Secure your temple and prevent the devil from gaining access. Equip your children to also safeguard their sanctuary. This is something they must learn to do for themselves. Teach them how. Lead by example.

Have a great day!