When we are filled with the Holy Spirit, we bear fruit in the light. This daily devotional looks at how God’s light is contrasted with Satan’s darkness.
Nuggets
- When we walk with God in His light, the Holy Spirit rewards us with goodness, righteousness, and truth.
- What happens in the darkness of sin is shameful — hopefully, causing us to want to turn from it.
Devotions in the Never Alone: The Holy Spirit in Our Lives series
This is an interesting set of verses. While they are grouped together, they don’t really hang together.
On the other hand, taken together, they give a good contrast between God’s light and Satan’s darkness. Let’s take a look.
Let's Put It into Context
Here is a running list of nuggets for the series.
Light Bears Fruit
“for the fruit of the light consists of all goodness, righteousness, and truth — testing what is pleasing to the Lord. Don’t participate in the fruitless works of darkness, but instead expose them” (Eph. 5: 9-11 CSB)
When we walk with God in His light, the Holy Spirit rewards us with goodness, righteousness, and truth.
The Holy Spirit has a two-fold job. He bring the gift of salvation to us. Then He makes the spiritual changes to us that salvation brings.
When we are obedient to God’s laws and commandments, the Holy Spirit rewards us with the fruits of the Spirit. The ones Paul discusses here are goodness, righteousness, and truth.
- Goodness is imitating God’s holy, pure, and righteous behavior.
- Holy means to be set apart, perfect, and morally pure while possessing all virtues.
- Perfection means we reach a state of maturity because the combination of the spiritual graces form, when all are present, spiritual wholeness or completeness — holy, sanctified, and righteous.
- Spiritual graces are worldly morals that have been submitted to God to further His kingdom instead of enhancing this world.
- Sanctified means to be set free from sin.
- Perfection means we reach a state of maturity because the combination of the spiritual graces form, when all are present, spiritual wholeness or completeness — holy, sanctified, and righteous.
- Pure means not being sinful or having the stain of sin.
- Virtues are standards of moral excellence.
- Righteous means we are free from sin because we are following God’s moral laws.
- Holy means to be set apart, perfect, and morally pure while possessing all virtues.
- Righteousness is the indwelling goodness that is the result of a solid relationship with God built by a sincere life of conscientious obedience to God’s laws and commandments and from which all virtues flow.
- God’s truth is faithfulness that leads to godliness.
Glossary
It is interesting to note that verse 9 has that little word all in it – that little big word. We can take that a couple of different ways.
If we say the all only modifies goodness, that means we must be totally holy, pure, and righteous. If we say that it modifies goodness, righteousness, and truth, it really doesn’t change things.
We are to have God’s character and be good and righteous. We base everything on His truth.
No, it isn’t talking about just being a good person here. It is talking about being without sin.
Why are the fruits attributed to the Spirit? Manton noted the fruits show similarity to the Spirit.
Resource
That is logical. These are attributes of God. The Spirit is changing us to be like God. We receive these attributes.
To read a devotion in the Finding Our Center series, click on the button below.
It is the Spirit that brings the gospel to our hearts. It is He Who prompts us and brings salvation to the heart level.
Salvation is the gift of life through the deliverance from condemnation and sin to acceptance and holiness and changes us from being spiritually dead to spiritually alive.
- Sin is not believing that Jesus is our Savior to save us from our actions by humans that disobey God and break one of His reasonable, holy, and righteous laws and commandments, goes against a purpose He has for us, or follows Satan’s promptings.
- Holiness is the transcendent excellence of His nature that includes elements of purity, dedication, and commitment that lead to being set apart.
- Purity means possessing God’s moral character, having eliminated the stain of sin.
- Spiritual death is the spiritual separation from God that occurred as a consequence of Adam and Eve’s original sin.
- The spiritually alive are those who have ABCDed, so they are no longer separated from God
The ABCDs of Salvation
If you have not become a believer in Christ, please read through the
Plan of Salvation and prayerfully consider what God is asking you to do.
A – admit our sins
B – believe His Son Jesus is our Redeemer
C – confess God as Sovereign Lord
D – demonstrate that commitment by making any changes needed in our lives to
live the way in which God has called us
The Disciple’s Job Description
Glossary
We have to give the Holy Spirit time to work in our lives. The change doesn’t occur overnight, so we have to give Him time.
But that means we have to give time. We have to seek God.
Searching for and Seeking God
Hearing His Word (Rom. 10: 17).
Reading His Word (Rev. 1: 3).
Praying to Him (Heb. 4: 16).
Studying His Word (Ac. 17: 11).
Meditating on His Word (Ps. 1: 1-2).
Memorizing His Word (Ps. 119: 11).
This is not an exhaustive list of fruits. We gain more rewards than just these.
To read a devotion in the Fruit of the Spirit from the Inside Out series, click on the button below.
Verse 10 brings up a very good point. God test us; He does not tempt us.
After the Holy Spirit teaches us and promise us what to do, we have to have situations in which we can try out our newfound faith. God isn’t trying to knock us off track. He is trying to show us how much we’ve grown in Him.
Think about it. We are supposed to do what is acceptable to God. He is just giving us the opportunities to do that.
We would probably say that we are practicing what we preach.
To read a related devotion, click the button below.
That is where it gets interesting. We’ve talked before about what is acceptable to God, what isn’t, and that God is indifferent on some things.
To read a related devotion, click the appropriate button below.
Light Wakes the Sleepers
“For it is shameful even to mention what is done by them in secret. Everything exposed by the light is made visible, for what makes everything visible is light. Therefore it is said: Get up, sleeper, and rise up from the dead, and Christ will shine on you” (Eph. 5: 12-14 CSB)
What happens in the darkness of sin is shameful — hopefully, causing us to want to turn from it.
When sin is exposed by the light, disciples should hate these practices. Paul said they are so reprehensible, it is hard to talk about them.
Along with darkness, another term used to describe our sin is sleep. Lathrop indicated that is because our conscience is asleep.
Lathrop also made a good observation that, if we neglect to evaluate ourselves, we are sleeping, too. We know that God wants us to continually take stock of where we are on the Sanctification Road.
To read a related devotion, click the button below.
Ooo, baby. Look what Lathrop said. He wrote, “If you have no conflicts with sin and temptation, you are in a state of slumber.”
Resource
If we are firmly in God’s camp, Satan will throw everything he can at us to derail us. If we are already his, he doesn’t have too — he already has us. We are already in a state of slumber.
It is God’s plan to awaken sleeping souls. That is the whole purpose of the Plan of Salvation.
It is so sad that some disciples may be asleep and not know it. The Pharisees were. They thought they were good to go because they kept all of God’s laws and commandments and added to them with their own.
But the Pharisees were asleep. They weren’t following God.
Persons of Interest
Making the Connections
We are made to be light because of God’s grace. Grace is a free and unmerited gift of love from the Heavenly Father, given through His Son, Jesus Christ, that enables salvation and spiritual healing to believers by the work of the Holy Spirit.
Glossary
It was through His grace that God designed the Plan of Salvation to restore our relationships with Him. It was all His doing.
How Do We Apply This?
- Build habits based on God’s Word, praise, and prayer.
- Know the danger we are in when we have not been convicted of our sin.
- .Repent of our sins when we are under conviction.
Resource
Father God. We choose to walk in Your light. We thank You that You have called us from our sleep so that we can commune with You. Amen.
What do you think?
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