Discussion with Fenton/Carey/JohnDB/Larry2

[grace]

Only those invited are allowed to post here, so please restrain yourself if you happen by this thread and were not invited to comment/post here..........thank you.

Those invited:
Fenton
Carey
John DB
Larry2

Discussion Subject:  Concerning the fruit of one's labors............Kingdom building

Not sure if this is the thread you  invited me to or not...if not then you can correct me!

THe fruit of one's labors....kingdom building I assume is the topic.
One thing we need to consider with the fruit of the spirit is context in Galatians. The Christians being troubles by outsiders. In verse 13, the context shifts to the behavior of the Galatians themselves.

Gal. 5:13 " For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as as opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another."
The "flesh" refers to the natural desires, right? THese work against each other...flesh and godliness.

In verse 16 we are told to walk by the Spirit, and we will not gratify the desires of the flesh.

THe "fruit of the spirit" is our new spiritual nature that we received when we were born again. Our choice after our new birth is do we live by the new nature or the flesh. If we choose to live out of our flesh we will produce unloving or impatient or without self-control etc. On the other hand if we live out of our new nature we can be assured that God is committed to help us have the fruit of the spirit fully developed in our lives.

This is where a lot of us get confused about works! We have a choice after we are saved! But these fruits have to be developed! They are in our new nature (born from above) and will produce..love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

[p.rehbein]

Grace, you are welcome on this one too............the other is above this one on the Forum Page.........Deaux is the key word in the title.