1) LOVE: The natural meaning of Love is deep feeling of affection, it could be worldly, which is self-centered or biblical kind of Love is other people-centered. God commands us to Love Him with all our heart and to Love our neighbors as ourselves. We put love into action by loving others (1st John 3:15) says “by loving brethren, we pass from death to life, anyone who does not love others remain in death” So love and do not hate others.
2) JOY: Worldly meaning of Joy is the feeling of great pleasures and happiness, it is correlated to possession and prestige, but biblical Joy is as a result of living a life of fulfillment, submitted to the Lordship of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the Leadership of Holy Ghost. Joy is a gift of God manifested in us as a result of the spirit of God in us. When we surrender our lives to God, and submit ourselves to the leading of Holy spirit, we understand the word of God and share the word of God with you. Others, our Joy will be full. God want us to be joyful. 1st (Thessalonians 5:16) Apostle Paul tell us to rejoice always either in good situation or in bad situation, the spirit of God in us will give us joy, the joy of the Lord is our strength, amen.
3) Peace: is defined as freedom from disturbance, when there is no war or battle, no fight
Biblically there are three dimension of peace:
I) Peace with God, we have peace with God when we accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and savior, He reconcile us back to our creator by His death and resurrection, we no more enemy of God, we become children of God through Christ our Lord.
ii) Peace from God: Jesus Christ said “my peace I have to you, not as the world gives …. (John 14:27) So we have peace from God even when we are facing trouble, peace of God will sustain us, and God will see us through (John 20:19) Peace be with us from the Prince of peace
iii) The Peace of God, Peace from God, and peace with God all are made possible by the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the peace of God surpasses all understanding
(Philippians 4:7)
4) Long-suffering – meaning showing patient, in spite of tribulations/troubles cause for you by others.
Long-suffering, endurance help us to get rid of what ever is holding us back, it help us not to quite and stay focus, it help us find and pursue our passion and to embrace our adversity. When a major problem appears, we can deal with it with our endurance, we are in great need of endurance for spiritual strength to deal with everyday problems confronting us, all of us are wrestling with issues all the time. So endurance, Long-suffering or patient is Christ-like response to our problems. May God help us to endure, and give us victory, success and make us excell in all our endeavor.
5) Gentleness: Compassion – is the quality of being kind hearted, mild-mannered, tender hearted. It is action; you see a need, you act to meet the need, we act on what we see, what we do, how we do it and what cost us. When God show us a need, we act to help meet that needs as best as we can. Then we fulfill the command of compassion. Love God and love you neighbor, the need could be for money, cloth, food, or encouragement, justice etc.
Jesus thought us to show mercy by meeting those needs. May God help us to help others. Amen
6) Goodness – Generosity: is quality of being kind, morally good, or virtuous. God want us to be channels of God’s goodness and mercy to others. We need to change the way we think toward money, we must be “broken” we are going to talk about brokenness in detail in our future blogs. But don’t be afraid to do good, “do not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time, you will reap it if you do not give up” (Galatian 6-9). Good people are generous
(James 1:17). God is very generous (Genesis 1:26)
7) Faithfulness – is quality of being faithful, belief, integrity, fidelity, loyalty, support, honest, be yourself
if you have faith you will be faithful, faithfulness depending on your measure of faith sometimes, faithfulness is the rock of integrity, be honest, tell the truth, keep your word, and be yourself, be who you say you are and be genuine
8) Meekness – Gentleness, Humility, it focus on God while pride focus on self. Submissive to authority, going along with what other people want to do, humble person serve people, they are good leaders, and they keep learning; they don’t loose perspective. To be humble is not weakness, as people may think, be genuinely humble, don’t fake it, do not be manipulative. We are command by God to humble yourself (James 4:10). The spirit of God in us will help us to humble ourselves, so that God will lift us up above our enemies (1st Peter 5:6-7) IJMN amen
9) Temperance – Self Control, Self discipline, it is moderation in action, being moderately indulgence in the appetite or passion. Self discipline is the strength of effective and successful person; it is the strength that allow us to do what we know should be done, we need to cultivate all the fruits of the spirit, self control was place last on the list, but it is more important, those who have self control fast forward their progress, they are upward bonds, self discipline will help us to soar like eagles, we must denying ourselves, control ourselves to be a good disciple of our Lord Jesus Christ ( Mark :8:34-35).
May God help us to discipline ourselves IJMN amen