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Transcript

Hello, this is Niall Walshe. Welcome to another "Thought for the Day" from the Christian Bible Church.

There are blessings and benefits beyond number that flow from being a Christian. There are the primary blessings of sins forgiven, heaven assured and a relationship with God restored. Some of the blessings are in the spiritual realm and, as it says in Ephesians chapter 1, God has blessed the Christian "in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ." Some of the blessings are in the physical realm. In Philippians chapter 4 the Apostle Paul assures us that, "My God will meet all your needs according to His glorious riches in Christ Jesus." We inherit, because of Jesus, the blessings of the previous Covenants that God had with man - whether it was Abraham, Noah, Moses or David; all these blessings are ours through Christ.

Through Jesus we also are blessed through the New Covenant. And one of those blessings is the fruit of the indwelling Holy Spirit in the lives of Believers. In Galatians chapter 5 it lists the various fruits of the Spirit as: "...love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control." When we think upon the fruit of the Spirit we can see that it is possible for a Christian to live in a radically different way to the non-believer. It has been said before that "fruit grows;" that is, it doesn't develop overnight! It has to be said that if these are the fruits of the Holy Spirit then those who live without the Spirit, non-believers, will never know what it is to live lives where these emotional blessings are well developed. They can never know lives that are directed by agape love, or lives that are filled with the joy of our salvation, or lives that are filled with a peace that passes all understanding and so on.

In fact, in 2 Timothy chapter 3 the Apostle describes exactly what lives, apart from the Spirit, will be like in the end times. He writes, "People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God..."

There are two lists of character and behaviour patterns. One is for people who belong to, and are in a relationship with, God; the other is for those who live their lives separated from God. It doesn't take much to work out which list offers the best kind of life.

Of course, most people would think - whether they are Christians or not - that they would have the character and behaviour patterns of the first list: love, joy, peace and so on. But were that so, it would mean that we can manage perfectly well without the Holy Spirit. The truth is that we need the Holy Spirit to help us each day to overcome the sinful flesh and live out the life Christ has purchased for us. It is one more example of people fooling themselves by denying the truth of the Word of God, and by believing they can live in a godly way - but without God.

However, as times goes on and as the world manifest the signs of the end times the separation between Christian and non-Christian will become even more apparent. It is important, before we reach such extremes, that we allow the fruit of the Spirit plenty of time to grow, develop and ripen. We will need that fruit in the times that are to come.

Thank you for listening.