Fruit Unto Holiness

“But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life.” (Ro 6:22 AV)

 

If we only realized just how free we are!  The work of Christ for the sinner turned saint is to eradicate that part of us that desires everything God does not.  There is much debate over these concepts, so I will rather, meditate upon the later part of this verse.  That being the fruit unto holiness.  Regardless of what view someone might hold, we can all agree on the ministry of the Holy Spirit places in us a desire to do right.  We did not have that before.  Now we do.  However, as Paul will so eloquently explain in the next chapter, doing right is not automatic.  We still have the flesh to contend with.  We still have temptation to resist.  We have a battle that requires we die daily.  Our wills, now inclined to desire God and godly things, is not so disciplined that our choices become automatic.  Even towards the end of his life, Paul was still striving for complete and total surrender to the will of God for him.  This brings us back to the aforementioned phrase.  The only way to have fruit into holiness is to be made from sin.  The only way to do that is to first, realize it is a possibility.  We can be free from sin.  Second, realize that with the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, we are free from sin.  Lastly, all we need to do is yield to the ministry of the Holy Spirit and we have fruit unto holiness.

People and creatures can be conditioned to believe they are captive when they are really not.  One of the houses in which we lived was not the safest of all houses.  Our children were little.  They were toddlers.  There were parts of that house we would not let them venture.  One of them was the stairs.  These stairs, like the entire house, were not straight.  They were not the safest of all stairs.  Another place of concern was the kitchen.  There were objects under the kitchen sink which they needed not discover.  More importantly, when Mom was cooking, there were dangers everywhere.  Even today, I am scared to go into the kitchen when my wife is in there.  😉  I put these wooden gates across the two entry points to the kitchen.  It frustrated the boys.  They would carry on.  I would have to chasten them and bring them away from the gates lest they pull the gates down and gain access.  After a while, they adjusted and the barriers were simply observed, but also ignored.  An interesting thing happens.  Once your child is used to the boundaries, he is not aware when the boundaries are lifted.  When encouraged to cross that boundary, he has a hard time doing it.  One of my sons did that very thing with the stairs.  Before we put the gate up, he didn’t have a problem trying to climb them.  After he adjusted to the gate and the stairs were no longer a temptation, he had a hard time being coxed up the stairs for the first time.  He didn’t realize how free he was!

This is every saint’s conundrum.  Our flesh reminds us we still have an enemy which needs to be defeated. Since the flesh has had an irresistible influence over our choices for so long, we are convinced it is stronger than it actually is.  Salvation and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit have made us free from the curse of the flesh.  All we have to do is accept that by faith and yield to the will and power of the Holy Spirit.  We want the fruit of holiness.  Our will, like Paul’s, has been changed.  Our wills now desire to do right but the flesh wants just the opposite.  We do not have to yield to the flesh.  We do not have to respond and fulfill the desires of the flesh.  The flesh can be conquered.  This is impossible without the Holy Spirit.  With Him, all things are possible.  It is that fruit unto holiness of which we seek.  It is there.  All we have to do is realize the chain to the flesh has been shattered.  We, henceforth, are not servants of sin.   We are free.  We are free indeed.  We need to live in that reality!