Juicy Words

9 Fruits of the Holy Spirit

As you will see I the Scripture verse I will give you in this
article - there is one very special incredible verse that will
tell you that God the Father wants to transmit 9 specific fruits
of the Holy Spirit up into our personalities.

The first three articles that we have listed in our
sanctification section all set the stage as to what God is
looking to do with each one of us. God wants all of us to enter
into a sanctification process with Him so that He can begin the
process of molding, shaping and transforming us into the image
of His Son Jesus Christ. He wants to make us more holy like He
and Jesus are. He wants to transform us by the renewing of our
minds. He wants to put right thinking into our thought process.

In the first article we have listed under this section titled
“Sanctification,” I gave you the specific verses from Scripture
that showed you that it is by the power of the Holy Spirit that
this sanctification process is done with you in this life.
However, you will not be a passive robot in all of this. You
have to be willing to work in cooperation with the Holy Spirit
once He begins to start this process within you.

Your job is to get into the Word to find out exactly what it is
God is going to want to change about you. You will need to find
out what qualities God will want you to try and “put on” into
your personality and what qualities He will want you to try and
“put away.”

This article will be the first of a series of articles giving
you all of the appropriate Scripture verses showing you exactly
which qualities and attributes God wants to get worked into your
personality and which qualities that He will want to pull out of
you.

And there is no better place to start this series of articles
than with the 9 fruits of the Holy Spirit. If you want to start
off by keying on some of the more positive qualities that God
would really like to get worked into your personality - really
study and meditate on these specific 9 qualities.

When God the Father purposely isolates and spells out 9 specific
qualities that will be coming directly from His Holy Spirit - He
is really letting you know the extreme importance of these
specific 9 fruits. These 9 fruits are major fruits and qualities
that are coming directly from God Himself, and every Christian
should do the best they can to work with the Holy Spirit in
getting all 9 of these fruits worked into his or her personality.

I’ll first start off by showing each of these 9 specific fruits
so that you can have all 9 of them isolated at the top of this
article. I will then give you the Scripture verse that these 9
fruits are coming from. I will then do a brief commentary on
each one of these fruits so you can fully understand what each
one of these fruits are and how they can dramatically change the
quality of your life and your state of being if you are willing
to allow the Holy Spirit to start to work all 9 of these fruits
into your mind, soul and personality.

Here are the 9 fruits of the Holy Spirit

• Love
  
• Joy
• Peace
• Longsuffering
• Kindness
• Goodness
• Faithfulness
• Gentleness
• Self-control

Now here is the specific verse from Scripture where these 9
fruits are coming from:

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering,
kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.”
(Galatians 5:22)

Before I get into the appropriate commentary on what each of
these fruits are all about, note the following:

1. The word “Spirit” is with a capital “S” - which means that
these 9 fruits are coming directly from the Holy Spirit - not
from us.

2. What this means is that God’s love, God’s peace, God’s joy
and God’s goodness can be started to be transmitted up into your
personality. These are His attributes and His personality
qualities that will start to flow and mesh into the core of your
personality. Think about the ramifications of this - that God
the Father Himself is allowing us to share in a part of His
divine nature by allowing His Holy Spirit to transmit and impart
these nine qualities right up into our soul and personality!

That is why God the Father is specifically telling us in this
verse that these 9 fruits are coming directly from the Holy
Spirit - so that we can fully appreciate the magnitude of such
an experience.

Jesus has already told us that He is the vine and that we are
the branches. The branches draw their life from the vine - not
vice versa. Just as the branch draws its life from the vine - so
we too draw our life directly from Jesus. Jesus will release His
life to us through the Holy Spirit in exactly same way that the
vine will release the life of the tree into the branches.

In one short, but incredible powerful Scripture verse, God the
Father is giving all of us an incredible revelation on what can
go on behind the scenes in the spiritual realm for those that
are willing to work with Him in this sanctification process.

How to be a Church Secretary & Survive!

Whilst reading an article recently on the role of the church secretary or administrator, I noted that:-

The Church Secretary must:

1) have a caring attitude & excellent people skills
2) operate with integrity and have a positive attitude
3) be articulate & computer literate;
4) have effective verbal and word-processing skills
5) live a Christ-centered life.

Whether you’re a paid member of staff or a volunteer - the role of secretary is a pretty demanding one!

One thing’s for sure, whether you’ve got plenty of experience in the role or are brand new, there’s nowhere quite like a church office to work!

“A good secretary is important in a church setting because he/she is on the frontlines and is the first person the public sees or talks to”. Yes, this is a key role in welcoming people in the church and making them feel a part of the body of Christ.

Your role is to make the job of the church leaders easier by providing administrative and organisational support, whilst at the same time undertaking a hundred and one different tasks to ensure the smooth running of the church.

The job description of a church secretary will vary considerably from church to church - but many of the key tasks are similar - and it’s certainly more than just answering the phone and printing off the weekly newsletter or bulletin.

An effective secretary will be able to multi-task, deal with dozens of interruptions, meet impossible deadlines and all whilst continuing to smile on through!

There is, however, one key thing for you to know before you undertake the role of secretary or administrator, and that is whether it is God’s calling for you. In a recent publication for new church staff, I found the following quote:- “above all it is essential to know that your work is part of God’s work and forwarding His work in the Church and in the locality”.

Without knowing that this is God’s calling for you, you might consider approaching this as an ordinary “job”, which will make you far less effective and more prone to spiritual burn out.

However, if you are confident that God is asking you to work for Him in this way, then you can be assured that “when God calls, God supplies”. When God supplies, He supplies fully; not just half-way or sparingly. That applies just as much to the people and office skills we need, as to the finance that we may often consider when we talk of God’s calling and supply.

To summarise, the work of a Church Secretary is vital, serving the church and helping to enable its worldwide mission.