We have been briefly discussing how the seedbed of the fruit of the Spirit is New Testament church life. Of course, another main seedbed of this fruit is family life. This is why both of these, church life and family life, are under such an assault in our times. However, it is during these times that the greatest church life and the greatest families will emerge.
As we have discussed previously, the Lord Jesus could have bound the devil and taken possession of the world immediately after His resurrection, as He had fully purchased it by the cross. However, before taking possession of this world, He wanted to give an opportunity for many others to become sons and daughters of the King. Their faithfulness would be proven by them enduring the onslaught of the world and the devil, and remaining faithful.
Since the Fall, the devil has had a boast that the Lord’s crowning creation, mankind, which He created especially to have fellowship and to dwell with, when given the choice, chose evil over righteousness, even when living in the most perfect conditions. Because of this the devil boasts that given the choice, all of creation will choose his ways over the Lord’s ways. Before the end comes, the Lord will have a people who will have ended this boast. Even in the darkest of times, in the worst conditions, against the onslaught of all that hell and the world can throw at them, they will remain faithful, choosing righteousness over evil to obey God rather than the evil one. In this way, they will even become witnesses to principalities and powers, as well as the rest of creation, that God and His truth will always ultimately triumph.
Therefore, the greater the trial, the greater the witness. Even the angels will admit that the faithful church, which has endured the greatest of trials and remained faithful, is worthy to be their judges. For this reason the greatest fruit of the Spirit is grown in the most difficult conditions, which is why we are given the important exhortation in James 1:2-4,12:
knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance.
And let endurance have its perfect result, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
Blessed is a man who perseveres under trial; for once he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life, which the Lord has promised to those who love Him.
Just as a runner’s endurance does not increase until they press past their previous limits, our faith does not grow until we are placed in conditions that require more faith than we have had before. Our love does not grow until we are placed in a situation where it requires more than we have had before. The same is true of our patience, our peace, and so on. For this reason, for as long as we remain on the path of life we can expect to be going through some trials that are helping us to grow. When we learn this, these trials do not become something to be avoided, but embraced as opportunities and the joy that James talked about.
As Francis Frangipane has said, “We never fail one of God’s tests—we just keep taking them until we pass.” I think most of us are now ready to stop having to take the same tests over and over, so let’s pass them and move on. Then we shall receive the reward that God gives to all who pass His tests—even bigger ones!
This is true: the bigger the trial, the bigger the opportunity to enter into the kingdom. This truth strengthened saints in the first century, as we are told in Acts 14:22: “strengthening the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith, and saying, ‘Through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God.’” Only the weak, immature, or deceived fail to see trials as gateways into the kingdom and opportunities to grow in the fruit of the Spirit, which is to grow up into Christ.
Those who want to live lives of escape, where they can avoid all trials, are those who will fail to mature. The sad thing is that they will have trials anyway because of the failure to face them, and be increasingly defeated by them instead of strengthened. These go from defeat to defeat, usually growing in self-pity instead of the nature of the Lord. Once we learn how overcoming a trial strengthens us in the Lord and how much sweeter victory tastes, learning to go from victory to victory and to never leave a situation in defeat, we begin to see greater trials as the opportunity to taste even sweeter victories, leading us deeper into the kingdom.
God does not tempt men with evil, but we are told throughout the Scriptures that the Lord does test the righteous. There is a difference between a test and a temptation, though a temptation may be a test. The Lord tested Adam and Eve by placing the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden. This was not done to cause them to sin. There could have been no true obedience if there was no freedom to disobey. Likewise, there can be no true worship if there is no freedom not to worship. It is for this reason that there must be freedom for there to be true worship. This freedom requires that we choose.
We must choose to believe. We most choose to love. We must choose to be patient. We must choose the fruit of the right tree. Adam and Eve could have complained that if the Lord did not want them to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. why did He put it right in the middle of the Garden, and why did He make it so appealing? Because it would not have been a test if it had not been appealing. And like that tree, most of our tests are placed right in the middle of our lives where it is very difficult not to face them.
We can make the same complaints: “Lord, why don’t You just bind Satan now so that he can’t tempt us? Why don’t You just remove the temptations?” Then it would not be a test of our faith, love, and devotion, and we would not grow. We must understand that the harder the trial, the more the Lord thinks of us, not less. In fact, it should concern us greatly if we are not going through trials or if we are not being disciplined by the Lord. We are told this in one of the most important exhortations in Scripture, which I quote below and encourage you to read it carefully. The written Word of God is the seed, the fertilizer, and the water required for us to bear the true fruit of the Spirit:
fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you may not grow weary and lose heart.
You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin;
and you have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons,
“My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor faint when you are reproved by Him;
For those whom the Lord loves He disciplines, and He scourges every son whom He receives."
It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline?
But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons.
Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them; shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of spirits, and live?
For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our good, that we may share His holiness.
All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to
those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.
Therefore, strengthen the hands that are weak and the knees that are feeble,
and make straight paths for your feet, so that the limb which is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed (Hebrews 12:1-13).
If we are going to bear fruit, we cannot keep wasting our trials, but must be resolved to believe God and trust in the sure fact that He: “...always leads us in His triumph in Christ, and manifests through us the sweet aroma of the knowledge of Him in every place”(II Corinthians 2:14). We are also encouraged by His sure Word that: “…we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the first-born among many brethren; and whom He predestined, these He also called; and whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified (Romans 8:28-30).
This is the sure Word of God that will never fail! We can only fail if we quit living according to His Word. Just as the first thing the devil did to cause Adam and Eve to stumble was to get them to doubt God’s Word, we must, above all things, resolve to hold fast to His Word, knowing that it is true.
All of God’s tests are open book tests where the answers are readily available to us. However, just knowing the answers are not enough—we must live them. The real test of whether we believe the Lord is whether we live according to His Word. Determine today and every day that you will not run from the tests, but resolve to recognize them and pass them. In the coming weeks we will get into a bit more detail about just how we can more readily recognize and understand these tests and use each of them to grow in the fruit of the Spirit.
