46

Satan doesn't like it when, through regular confession, repentance and forgiveness you get used to feeling clean clear through. He'll try to convince you God is tired of hearing from you.

"Surely you're not going to bother God with that same old
confession again, are you? How many times have you confessed
that sin to him anyway? Ten? A hundred? A thousand times?
God's weary of hearing from you with your endless confessions."

Ever heard words like that from the enemy? I have.

Let me give you Gospel for dealing with attacks like that.

"If (you) confess (your) sin (God) is faithful and just, and forgives
(your) sins and cleanses (you) from all unrighteousness" (1Jn. 1:9).

In that moment of amazing grace you are clean. Clear through!

Better yet, when God forgives he forgets.

"I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more" (Jer. 31:34).

So you come to him today confessing a sin you confessed yesterday.

"I did it again, Lord."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Sure you do, Lord. Look it up in your record book."

"Nope. There's nothing here. You record's clean."

When God forgives he forgets. Therefore, when you come to him today confessing a sin you've confessed a zillion times before:

It's as if he's hearing it for the very first time!

47

DON'T LET SATAN BADGER YOU ANY LONGER.

Take authority over him. Tell him, in the name of Jesus, to go to hell.

Keep your account with God up to date on a moment by moment basis.

The instant you become aware of sin confess it.
Tell God you don't want to do it again.

Sometimes you can't do that because in the midst
of your confession you're thinking about doing it again.

On those occasions tell him you don't want to want to
do it again. That's an honest prayer.

Receive the love, acceptance and forgiveness God offers.
            In time, the joy of being clean clear through will help you stay clean.

48

KNOWING WHEN YOU'RE FULL.

If the fullness of the Holy Spirit is that means whereby
you move from infancy
to maturity in Christ,
how do you know when you're full?

As you might have guessed, God has not left you without an answer to so basic a question.

"The fruit of the Spirit"
--the visible, measurable, tangible, outward proof
of your being full of the Spirit--
"is love" (Gal. 5:22-23).

"God's love has been poured into (your) hearts through the Holy Spirit which has been given to (you)" (Rom. 5:5)

FRUIT, NOT GIFTS.

The proof you are filled with the Holy Spirit is not the presence of a particular spiritual gift.

The gifts of the Spirit are wonderful.
They really are!
And it's important that you discover, develop and exercise
your spiritual gift(s).

But the gifts of the Spirit do not say anything about you.
They only say something about God.
They make it clear God loves to give gifts to his kids.

The loving Father delights in
          providing you with the tools you need
                       to do the work to which He has called you.

But the proof you're looking for

--that you are, in fact, filled with the Holy Spirit--
lies not in the gifts of the Spirit,
but in the fruit of the Spirit.

49

THE FRUIT IS ONE.

"But the fruit (singular)of the Spirit is (singular) love, joy, peace, patience,
kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control (Gal. 5:22, 23).

I've searched high and low for the origin of the following without success. Here's my version.

Joy is love singing.
      Peace is love resting.
            Patience is love waiting.
                  Kindness is love acting.
                  Goodness is love protecting.
            Faithfulness is love obeying.
       Gentleness is love submitting.
Self-control is love ruling.

The budding point is love.

The absence (first key word) of one (second key word) thing
--love (third key word) in its constituent parts--
lets you know at any moment of the night or day
when you're not (fourth key word) filled with the Spirit.

You're rarely aware of being loving, patient and kind. Right?
                  How about being unloving, impatient, and unkind? Me, too!
Why is that? Your human spirit has, for that moment at least, wrenched control from the Holy Spirit.

When you become aware this has happened--

immediately,
         courageously,
                 and firmly--
give up control.

Free the Holy Spirit to produce his fruit in you again.

Love is not the main thing. Love is everything.
Love is not only the greatest. Love is the great-test.

To be loving is to be in touch with God.
To be unloving is to be out of touch with God.

The one sure sign you're filled with his Spirit
     --that you're being controlled by his indwelling presence--
               is that you bear the fruit of the Spirit
       without which everything else you are and do
               amounts to nothing (I Cor. 13:1-3)!

JOY IS LOVE SINGING.

The joy of the Lord is not gaiety.
Or hilarity.
The joy of the Lord is not ecstacy.
Or mere merriment.

The joy of the Lord is not grim determination to grin and bear it.

That's not joy.
That's jut-jawed carnality.
That's a determined effort on your part to accomplish in the flesh
what can only be produced by the Holy Spirit.

Joy is the Spirit's fruit.
It is not something you generate on your own.

Like love, of which it is a constituent part, joy is indigenous.
It is native to the soil of a soul full of the Holy Spirit.

Joy springs from knowing:

You are forgiven.
You are clean clear through.
Your days of trying to be like Jesus on your own are over.
And God is at work in you to complete what he began (Phil. 1:6).

As such, joy is irrepressible.

Joy isn't something you have to struggle to express.

If there's a struggle, it's at the point of keeping it from busting out all over.

Joy is love singing.
Your assurance of forgiveness is so freeing and
your sudden awareness of God's involvement in your life is so overwhelming
love can't help but sing.

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