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About Jesus Steve Sweetman
"The acts of the sinful nature are obvious, sexual immorality, impurity, and debauchery, idolatry, and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissension's, factions, envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like." - Galatians 5:19-21 We often hear sermons on the fruit of the Spirit, but how many times do we hear the pastor speak on the fruit of the flesh. Does he think we are beyond such activities. If Paul thought that the church had no problem with such sins, he would not have written these words. Obviously some people were having trouble in this area. As Christians do we really have these problems? Look at the list, sexual immorality, witchcraft, drunkenness. We don't do these kinds of things do we? Probably not. Look a little closer and see some of the other sins. In the midst of witchcraft and sexual immorality, we see things like dissension, selfish ambition, and factions. Now that is getting a little closer to home, isn't it. Look around at the church. Are there factions? Indeed the factions have divided into other factions, who have subdivided further into more factions. What about selfish ambition? What about jealousy? What about envy? All of these sins are listed with the big heavy duty sins, and do appear in our modern day church. Is the church in its divided state a result of immorality? We have cut the church up into little pieces because of factions, envy, and divisiveness. Sometimes these types of sins sneak up on us. They are more subtle, but nevertheless they are harmful. The way to deal with these sins are to let the fruit of the Spirit become real in your life. We can therefore ask ourselves, where do we stand when it comes to such sins? Do we find ourselves in the midst of such activities? Is our lifestyle free from such things, or do we participate in divisive talk that shatters the church and make it ineffective for the Lord? It may be a good exercise to ask the Lord to show you where you stand in this area. He may point out to you an attitude, a motive that needs some adjustment. His Holy Spirit, who is able to convict the heart of sin is also able to remove the sin from the heart.
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