00:00:10.440 Hello everyone and welcome to the Milmac Musings Podcast by Destined for Glory, where we reveal the intersection between God and science for living wholeheartedly. Hi, everyone. Welcome back. We just decided to go with a new series of Fruit of the Spirit.

00:00:32.760 So Allison and I are here today to begin this new series, and we perhaps could have maybe three, four, five from this. Yeah, at least. At least. Right. So we're just enjoying being back together again. It's great to see you. Good to see you. Thank you. Thank you. So as we start, I think that when we were kind of apparent for the show, we were talking about Luke. Luke 11. Luke 11. And then 13.

00:00:58.920 And it basically is I'm just paraphrasing here briefly, but we all know that not everybody grew up in a very healthy situation. And so when we look at what is said about how even though you're evil, you know we really are. But thankfully for Jesus that we can understand and embrace these promises, how much more will your father give you the Holy Spirit. Yeah And what comes with that too through the baptism of the Holy Spirit is the fruit of the Spirit.

00:01:28.620 Yeah It's wonderful to just give an overview. It varies just a tiny little bit in different versions. But it's love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, and then faith. And that's faith we have from him. And then meekness and self-control. And there's a couple other nuances in the various versions. But I'm just excited to talk about it. And I think it's amazing that this is something I think the church may or may not understand entirely.

00:01:58.800 And thank you for coming together and we're talking about it. So your thoughts. Well, I know I didn't understand it before receiving the Holy Spirit. I didn't really know anything about it. I think I mostly knew 1 Corinthians 13. Love. And if you don't have love, you're sounding gong. And so to really have the Holy Spirit help you understand it and operate in it was very powerful and is supernatural.

00:02:32.100 So do we want to read Galatians 5 and just kind of I know you just went over I think there are nine areas of the Holy Spirit. The fruit of the Spirit. Yeah, I can get it real quick. And while I do, I was thinking this morning about us preparing for this. And I was thinking about you're just going to laugh. But I was thinking about a bowl of fruit and how you have all these different fruits in the bowl.

00:03:05.940 But when you pass the bowl of fruit, it is a bowl of fruit, not fruits. The way you refer to it. So just as the Holy Spirit gives us the fruit of the Spirit, even though there are nine aspects of it, it is the fruit. Right. And that's a great point. Yeah. And for us to live and we can go back to the Old Testament for this as well as Zechariah. I think it is at 8:10, not by might, not by strength, but by my spirits as a lot of folks.

00:03:36.960 Yeah And so it was really outlined, I think of Jeremiah as well, 31, and I think Ezekiel. I think it's 36 in Ezekiel as well. So it's something within the Old Testament and New Testament, as we've talked about many times, they are combined. They are together. There's no separation. Yeah It's one long story. One long story. Jesus. Yeah And it's just amazing that we have when we accept Jesus and then we have the baptism of the Holy Spirit, to receive that fruit is such a victorious way to live.

00:04:07.620 Yeah It's just amazing. It is amazing. Okay. So I'm reading from the Common English Bible. Oh, good. Good. Okay. Super. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Yeah. See, there's just a different various nuances there, but it's all the same. Yeah yeah It's all the same to give us a way to live life victoriously.

00:04:39.300 And before we start going any further, I just want to say something that we're maturing as Christians. We're not there yet. Yeah So we have ups and downs. We want to get on a more steady, even keel, but it's something that with the help of the Holy Spirit. And there's something in there that's just amazing that really helps me when I go through the difficulties. And you know we can all doubt, and we can all have questions, but we're still looking to Jesus for that.

00:05:10.080 But patience. It's his amazing patience that he knows our heart that we're there and we're moving forward with him. Yeah So I just want to say that, again, this isn't the perfect Christian. It's what he's doing in us. It's him and to help us for the people around us to live this life. But I just wanted to mention that because it was just something that was on my heart this morning. Yeah. I love that. That's great.

00:05:35.880 Well, you know when we think about the Holy Spirit, I guess, I know sometimes people get confused with the fruit of the Spirit and the spiritual gifts that he gives. And so what's the distinction between those two? Well, the spiritual gifts are gifts that the Holy Spirit gives to us.

00:06:00.840 Not that he has the same gift, but he gives it to us as he sees fit for us to help in a certain situation, or in the community, or anybody else that he would like us to help. So those are the gifts that he gives to us that work through us for the benefit of others. So with the fruit of the Spirit, we're able to embrace how we are to live from ourselves, our Christian walk, and the community around us.

00:06:30.660 So I think that's the difference. Your thoughts? Yeah. That's a great explanation. I like that very much. And that's the image of Jesus in us is living that way. Of course, there are other aspects of it, of the walk. But his character is brought out through the fruit of the Spirit, I think, in us. Yeah. And when you look to Jesus, it's Jesus lived the victorious life.

00:06:59.460 As we've talked about before, one of the things that I'm amazed about is as I walk further and further every day, I love learning. And there's always something new to learn. And I know many people may know this. You like learning a lot. I do. I just enjoyed learning about his word and how we can just embrace the Holy Spirit and just walk you know in a way that's victorious. And it's an everyday thing.

00:07:26.940 We get up, we hit our feet, hit the floor, and we just lean into him and just say, "Thank you, Lord. We're here." And as we talked briefly, we have natural gifts and supernatural gifts given to us by the Holy Spirit to help us advance the Kingdom of God because we're conduits for what he wants to do in this world. So it's exciting to be a part of that. Yeah, it is. And I love what we've heard over and over and over, which we know is true. Even with our natural giftings that he has given us, he puts his super on our natural.

00:08:00.480 Good point. Yeah. I love that. Yeah. That's great. And that's exciting. Yeah, it is to embrace what he has for us. I think that's just I don't know. Every day just as we talk. And this is one other thing on the quick aside is as we get together, we strengthen each other and we talk. And that's important as a community, a body of believers, to do that. So anyway, getting back to the fruit of the Spirit.

00:08:24.360 When we study and renew our minds, and then just understand that you know people may think and I brought this up before, people may think that Jesus died because of people. No. He chose to die, and he died when he chose to die. And that's the victorious life. And that was the joy that we were going to you know maybe another episode. But the joy that was set before him, us.

00:08:55.260 Now, embrace that. And I know it's sometimes hard for me to embrace, but all that suffering that he went through for us was because of absolute agape love. Yeah And we don't really understand that perfectly, but we know that his love is amazing. But for him to do that, to have that joy for us is just really, it's life-changing. It is. It really was life-changing for me, and I've seen it in other people's lives.

00:09:26.760 When you finally get your mind around that, really, because it is a renewing of your mind to understand that, but the Holy Spirit helps you in that. But to really grasp that and know that Jesus was willing to do all of that. And it wasn't like you know somebody was trying to pull him and make him do it. He was really willing. He wanted to do it, like you said, because he knew what it was going to be for us.

00:09:57.480 And I think about that. It almost makes me think like, "you know Are you willing to lay down your life for somebody?" It kind of helps us understand, "Well, if we're made in the image of Jesus, do we not get angry, or do we show more patience, or do we show more love toward people because we know that that's what Jesus did for us?" And so I think it helps me live my life out knowing that and how great the gift is that he gave us, just eternal life with him.

00:10:30.060 Oh, for sure. That's just amazing. We have it here and now. Yes. Even though we go through the difficulties that we go through, and we have to understand one of the primary things of looking at Jesus is to look above what's coming at us because he is above that. He's actually been victorious, so he's overcome the world. So our focus is on him. And I just feel that with the fruit, again, when we get into the situations you just talked about, it's not by our strength. And you have to understand that.

00:11:00.420 And I have to remind myself of that quite often. And I just say, "Lord, Lord, Holy Spirit, I have to lean into you. Help me to get through." And when you have the dialogue with the Holy Spirit, he helps you to diffuse something or at least look at it from a different viewpoint. And even if you do get angry or whatever else, you know you can repent. Praise God. Yeah.

00:11:25.800 I mean, I guess, and really, I guess that's one of the things that we need to do to keep, if you will, the channel of the Holy Spirit open in us, that freedom in him. Absolutely. When we recognize that. And I think he's really good at letting us know. Yeah. He does, but it's in a loving way. Yeah. It's not the accusatory. It's just you can do better. But then it's something inside of us that, for me, it just clicks and I'm saying, "Yeah, gosh, I'm sorry.

00:11:57.720 I shouldn't have done that." And I go to the person, and I'll say, "I'm really sorry. I shouldn't have been overbearing like that. I apologize. And let's work it out." yeah But the other person sees that too, and they know it's not you. Yeah That's the wonderful thing about it. Yeah. Because they've seen you in a different light before. Now they see you different. Right. So it's the glory of God. It's also His glory in a wonderful way. He's not sitting there. I want all this glory. He's just sitting there.

00:12:26.400 This is how I am. Yeah And we're to act that way to all of the people around us. And that just brings him glory. And it's also glorifying for everybody in our community or in our circle of sphere of influence. So it's exciting to talk about it. Yeah. And I mean, that goes down to your next-door neighbor, the person that you are behind in line at the grocery store, everybody. Everybody you come in contact with. And that's not always easy.

00:12:53.820 And that's why it's so important for us to understand that it really is not by our strength, but it's through him. And he is the one when we lean in. Right. Exactly. And I think Paul, I don't know the addresses we jokingly say. I'm not sure where it is, but Paul does say to live in peace as best you can with the other person. Amen. So we can do the best we can, but the rest is up to them. So we have to remember that as we move forward.

00:13:22.560 But again, we want to do the best we can in Christ yeah to bring His light and love to other people. And like you said, it's a maturing process. And so I know I used to just be really short-tempered. I just did. And I had a situation the other day. And it wasn't my situation, but I had to step in the middle of a situation.

00:13:48.240 And one of the persons was very upset and very almost volatile, okay, and accusatory.

00:14:01.980 And you know I think in the past, I would have operated out of my own defense mechanisms and trying to be like, "Hey, you know in this moment, it was so different, and it truly was a moment for me to see God's faithfulness in my life and how he can operate through us because the whole situation turned out where everything was calm and everything worked out.

00:14:37.260 And so you know we don't have those kinds of encounters every day, but we live in a world that is you know we all have things. And people have a story and something's happening in their life right at that moment. And so you know to really be leaning into him all the time in those moments when we're face-to-face with other people, when they're the ones that are having that hard time.

00:15:06.540 Exactly. It's like Jesus coming to them and calling them. Right. Yeah It's great to see that. And again, two things. We can get defensive, but if we step back and don't take it offensively, then that's a big help, too, to diffuse the situation. And another thing, too, that I read that was really amazing by Steve Backman was about the fact that I think it was Hay Guy. Is that how you pronounce it?

00:15:34.800 Hey Guy? Yes. He was talking about how we can create busyness in our lives and how we can have the emotional debt or spiritual debt or other things because we're not doing what we need to do to stay full of Jesus and just to focus on Him. So sometimes the crisis might come about. And if we're not looking to Jesus and we're not renewing our mind, and again, this isn't the law.

00:16:03.960 It's just something that is helping us to cope with the people around us. So it's another thing to stress. It reminded me about what you said. You know I used to be quick-tempered, but that was a lot of stress, too. You know And stress induced. And I think there are situations. I mean, even Jesus turned the tables. You know So I think there are situations where we can be. But yeah, I think it's a process and I think it's so beautiful how God works in us and through us and continuously is helping us grow in him.

00:16:40.500 And I think that's you know renewing the mind as you talked about. That is a part on us that we do, that we take. And then he operates through that. Right. Yeah. Good point. Yeah. Another thing, just a quick point I want to mention too, is I heard Andrew say this a lot, and it's comforting. It's nice to know as an example what humans do. Humans put their picture, their children's picture, and a fire mantelpiece. Picture God doing that.

00:17:10.440 This is my child. You know what I'm saying? That's just a great idea. It's like, "Wow, this is great." And that's the way he looks at us. Yeah And the patience to become more like Jesus is something that he helps us with. Every second of every day when we can go to him, he will help us with it. Yeah So I just In every situation. Yeah. Exactly. And that's great because we know that we're never alone. And when you know that and understand that, you're not afraid if you did something wrong. Yeah You're just like, "Oh, gosh, sorry, let me depend on that. I'm coming to you.

00:17:40.260 Show me what to do to get through this situation." The thing is, is if you're born again. Yeah. Great point. You want all this. Like you said a minute ago, it's not like you have to do it. It's the law or anything like that. You want this. You want to do this. This is what you're full of. Your heart is full of seeking that and wanting that. And I would say to please him. That's exactly right. It's to please him because he's a loving father. And why are you doing that?

00:18:10.440 Because you love him. We don't all do it perfectly. But when we love him, we want to do what is right in his sight yeah because he's the absolute truth. He's the truth and he's so trustworthy. I mean, he's so faithful. He is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. And you know when we see those experiences in our lives or other people's of him being faithful in moments that are very difficult, it is a faith builder in him.

00:18:46.620 You know Exactly. And that's what he's looking for. That's what he did in the Old Testament, and he's doing in the New Testament through Jesus. It's just loving, believing, and loyalty. And that's important. And all of this is the fruit of the Spirit when it comes out. When we have that love for God and accepting receiving His love for us, this is how this all generates maturity in a Christian. So I just love it. I just think it's an awesome subject.

00:19:10.380 I remember growing up and my favorite song when I was going to church and did not know Jesus personally was trust and obey. And I wanted to trust and I wanted to obey, but I could not do it. I absolutely could not because I did not have any knowledge of the Holy Spirit. I did not have the gifting of the Holy Spirit in my life. And there was no way that I could.

00:19:40.260 But when that happened, all of that changed. And I'm not saying, boy. No, I understand. But it changed for the better. Yes. It's much better. And my life is much better. And he does that. He's just amazing. I mean, he's the one that we stand in awe of all the time. That's a great word for and reverence in a good, healthy way. You know And that's the fear. That's technically what the fear of the Lord means and reverence. Yeah And as you look around in creation, you see just this amazing thing.

00:20:11.640 Yeah It's awesome. Yeah Is there anything else you want to talk about the subject on this? Questions or anything? Well, I was thinking about you know well, we kind of covered how hard it is when you're in the middle of a situation and what you do. But what if you're the one that has gone you know you're the one in the hot seat. You're the one that somebody is coming against you and it's very difficult you know to maintain.

00:20:40.740 I mean, I know it's the same principle, but have you had situations? Oh, yes. Yeah Oh, yes. I think you might have remembered a situation when mom died. Yeah. Yeah. That was a difficult thing. And you know I was able to step back and say, "Is it me? Was there something in me and what was it in me that created this?" And then the other thing, too, is you're not being critical of yourself. You just want to see if there's something you can do better.

00:21:10.560 Obviously, it's all because of the Lord who's going to guide you because you have supernatural guidance and wisdom and understanding. So that was difficult at the time. But when I was going through that, I just also was looking to God and knowing and receiving His love for me. And we're not perfect. And that's a tough thing. You know For me, I was a perfectionist because you know I had low self-esteem, so I had to be perfectionist because I wanted people not to think I had any low self-esteem.

00:21:39.420 And be accepted. I think you have to do everything just right. So when I look back at it, I just thank God that I'm able to look to him yeah and just say, "Thank you, Lord, for loving me." And again, if there's something we can change or do, we're going to do it from love because he'll guide us in that direction. It's not taking a rod and doing it. Just love.

00:22:03.780 Yeah And I think everybody realizes that you're going to get much more from love than you will from any type of other punishment or any of the fear of punishment or whatever else maybe. Love is just the answer to everything. Yeah. Yeah. And that's who he is. He is love. He is love. If you can recognize that, he is not just the emotion. He is love.

00:22:32.880 Yeah What can we say? Yeah. Well, we've talked about ourselves as believers, okay, and how the fruit of the spirit works in our lives. What about when we have encounters with non-believers? You know We're called to love even our enemy and to be kind. All of these parts of the fruit of the Spirit are who we are to be as he works that through us and teaches us.

00:23:07.500 So interactions with non-believers. What does that look like and why would we want to do that? Well, I was just reading today, Matthew 28:19, that we are to go out into the world to baptize in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. So it's really the Great Commission, and we're here for that purpose. And God's never changed that.

00:23:34.500 Right from the very beginning, from the fall, and we've talked about the Nephilim, and the sons of God, and all of that, we're here today, and God has not changed anything. And Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever. But understanding that the Lord is working and the whole thing is we're going back to eating. Yeah So we want everybody to be a part of this. And again, we can only do what we can do. We can be the light of the world, but obviously, they have the decision to make, and I think God wants us to be able to let them make the decision.

00:24:04.860 Yeah And he wants us to be able to bring the light of his love through them, to them, through us, to them. And if we can do that, the Holy Spirit's job is to rule them. We can't do that. We can only do what God's put us here to do. And there has to be boundaries in place. And then we also have to make sure that the decision is theirs. And we don't force anything. We just show them the love of God, and then they make the decision. Yeah. And there'll be people I mean, I've encountered this.

00:24:34.860 I'm sure you have, too, who absolutely repel you and think you know they don't want anything to do with you. They're angry. They don't like who you are. And that's just out of their own blindedness. It's really the blindness of the enemy that's keeping the veil over the rise. And that's the other thing, too, is the spiritual warfare going on. We've mentioned that many, many times, but it's still part of all this. And we're victorious through Christ who defeated evil.

00:25:03.060 And as we said before, Colossians 2:15 explains that perfectly. But the enemy is always working, and he's always looking for an open door and an opportunity to come in and try to create chaos in our lives. And he operates through people who are unhealed. And that can be a thorn. Yes, it can be. It certainly can because there are people in your life who could be family or friends who are very close with you.

00:25:33.360 And all of a sudden, things might come out of nowhere, and it can be and if it continues over a long period of time, then it can be damaging to you. So you have to really bring your thoughts and mind and love and just embrace Jesus' love for you. And again, if there's a situation where you're doing what you can do, all of what you feel you can do, and you feel the prompt, and it's not a bad thing to leave the situation. You know Anyway, that's what we're talking. It's like a whole different subject.

00:26:02.640 But it kind of is woven into this whole thing. So, yeah. Yeah. Wow. That's a great topic. And I'm really looking forward to us digging into this more and taking each of maybe the nine yeah and going through all of them and talking about them and looking at it from a biblical perspective and how that looks in our lives. Right. And what's great about that, too, is as we go forward and do a little bit more digging ourselves in this and research, we learn.

00:26:34.680 And it helps us to mature. And it's fun to talk with you and talk amongst ourselves because it's such an uplifting experience. Oh, yeah. And that's what God wants. He wants a fellowship in us to keep that and then to talk about the wonderful things of him and how it affects everybody around us. I think that's just awesome. It's so true. I mean, the experience of you know doing anything where you're teaching someone something is like you're learning so much more and you want to be able to bring forth the right things and what he is really saying to the best of your ability through him.

00:27:12.360 And so, yeah, the person comes away with a lot of more understanding of what it is, but that's just part of the blessing, I think, of being a teacher. Right. It does. And if I can add one more thing, too. When you're looking at we're disciples of Jesus. Yeah We're disciples of Jesus. And as we're moving forward with what you mentioned of unbelievers, and once they come to know Jesus, we're to disciple them.

00:27:39.900 It's not about you know I see this a lot too, and I know it's a lot of news that can create sensationalism with a revival in a particular university or whatever. That's great. But the bottom line is that's a one-time thing. Yeah We want to make sure that they're discipled. That's where the true progress of the movement of the gospel. You know The acceptance of Jesus. And it's digging in. It's exciting. You know I look at these headlines in CBN and whatnot.

00:28:09.120 It's wonderful to see. But my thought right away goes Who's discipling them? Who's going to disciple them? Yeah And it's not just a one-off because many people years ago, you can say you said that prayer. And if you don't do what we're talking about, and particularly it's just renewing your mind, you're not going to get it. Yeah You're not going to go through that. You're not going to embrace that. And you're missing out on we're not going to be any better than I'm not saying we're better, but we're not going to have a different experience than the people who are in the world system.

00:28:38.160 So why? Yeah Let's embrace it. Let's embrace his word, his love, and just renew our minds and go forward from there. Yeah. I mean, we have a great example of Jesus taking every one that he went to to bring the disciples together. I mean, Matthew, Peter, Mark, all of them, and having them go with him and teaching them and showing them how to do everything. And that's exactly the model for us.

00:29:05.700 I mean, we may not be walking in a desert and making things out of wood, but we are teaching and showing through our lives. And we don't always get it right. But we trust him to help in that. So yeah, I'm real excited about more discussion. Me too. I mean, it's a great place to start, and it was exciting when we discussed about doing this.

00:29:35.340 Yeah And I'm loving it. I'm just embracing it. So thank you. Yeah. Thank you.

00:29:41.700 Thank you for joining us today. If you have questions for us, please email us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. We look forward to hearing from you. Have a blessed day.