Well, here we are, on the last of the fruits of the Spirit!!!
That’s exiting, isn’t it? Let’s dive in to today’s fruit!
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy,
peace, longsuffering, gentleness,
goodness, faith, meekness, temperance:
against such there is no law.
Galatians 5:22–23
Today’s word is temperance. If you lived a long time ago, you might have been told to do all things with temperance . . . Today’s version is “Too much of a good thing can be a bad thing.”
This is very true (except when it comes to following God!).
If you eat too much chocolate, you’re bound to get sick.
If you ride the roller coaster too many times, you’ll get dizzy and . . . also sick.
The dictionary defines temperance as “restraint” or “self-control.”
This one applies to everything we do, whether that be for fun or for work. We all need a day off sometimes!
But seriously, especially when playing or on our phones, temperance is easy to forget. While watching YouTube or TicTok, for example. Or movies. Or playing games. If you do too much of it, it’s going to give you a headache, or you will get super tired or sick.
Exercising is great, but when you’re not in shape and overdo it, it’ll exhaust you or even damage your health. Even when you’ve been practicing, you can easily stretch your body too far.
But stretching yourself too far is only one of the side effects of solely focusing on something.
If you are overdoing it in any area (let’s take fandom for example), that takes away from your focus on God. In America, football is a HUGE sport. People will spend all day cheering for their team, especially at a live game. At home, there’s a lot of focus on food and getting friends together to watch the game.
If you are that focused on something that just makes you feel good, then you aren’t focusing that much on God. Not to say watching a game and supporting your favorite player is bad, not at all! But do all this with temperance. Keep God in mind, and cheer for Him as well.
…
Now I’m going to quickly touch on the end part of the verse: against such there is no law. There’s no law against doing good . . . at least not yet. However, the Bible does say that in the end days, good will be seen as bad and bad as good.
We’ve seen this happening already, with sinful acts being accepted as normal and good. So keep your eye out for what God says is the right thing to do, and do that. It’s more important to serve and obey Him than anyone else.
Remember, when the Holy Spirit is in you, you will show these fruits. These are the attributes of Christ, and Christ is in you. And if anyone is going to say that acting like your Savior is against the law, they’re wrong!
Take heart, friends. Paul writes in Philippians 4:13: I can do all things through Christ which strengthenth me.
You have strength from God, and no one can beat that! So with everything you do, do it with temperance, and keep focusing on Him.
God bless,
Janet
Amen! This is really good! I love the reminder about self control. It is very hard to do sometimes. But when you do, it can pay off a lot.