Welcome, dear readers to the column of our „Daily Word for Spiritual Edification”! I thank God for every one of you and pray that your thirst for the Word of God and His wisdom would not grow cold and that you would not lose the passionate desire to fellowship with Him daily, since God is the true source of life. We are still talking about the calling of every Christian – to manifest God through our lives, as Jesus did. We discussed that Jesus came to manifest God to the people. He paid the price on the Cross of Calvary so that every one who believes in Him can become one with the Father. Now Jesus calls every believer to follow His example and to manifest God to the people through our lives. Jesus manifested God in two main ways:
- Through His lifestyle (character) and
- Through His deeds (gifts).
We can also manifest God through our characters and our works.
Character is the passive part of our being that reveal itself under specific circumstances. It is not possible to determine character right away. It is who we really are. The character of Christ is formed in us hrough the help of the fruit of the Holy Spirit.
- It manifests in us:throughpeace, love and joy;
- It manifests in our relationships with other people: throughlong-suffering, goodness and kindness;
- It manifests in our relationships with God: through faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
«But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control» (Galatians, 5:22-23).
The fruit of the Spirit helps us to act and react like Jesus. We are able to manifest God only if the character of Christ is manifested in us. We can only be like Christ when we have the fruit of the Spirit growing in us. As we submit ourselves to the Spirit of Christ that indwells us, His character and His traits will be formed in us and that will help us to live the life He lived. It will help us to relate to God, to other people and to ourselves like Jesus did or would do. But God also wants us to do the works of Jesus. For this very reason He gave us the Holy Spirit with all of His manifestations. We read about these manifestations in the following passage:
«…for to one is given the word of wisdom through the Spirit, to another the word of knowledge through the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another discerning of spirits, to another different kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues» (1 Corinthians, 12:8-10).
We manifest God in our lives not just through the character of Christ, but also when we do the works Jesus did while on earth. And that is entails the active part of our life – our personalities.
Our personality is the active side of our life that is connected to what we do. So we manifest God in our flesh when through the help of the Spirit as we develop the fruit of the Spirit and exercise the gifts of the Spirit. We will not be able to manifest God in our lives in this wicked generation all by our own or in our own strength; this kind of life style is only possible by the power of God that dwells in us. May God give you every one of us the understanding of the importance of us fulfilling our callings! God bless you! Pastor Rufus Ajiboye
