Your Daily Devotional for March 30, 2006

March 30, 2006

 

The Purpose of the Christian Life

by Dr. Paul Chappell

 

“Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples.”

(John 15:8)

 

The Lord has grafted us into Himself for a purpose. From the time we receive Christ as our Savior until the time He calls us home, He has a purpose for us here in this life. God has an ordained purpose for you, and that purpose is not that we would live as the Scriptures say, “henceforth to ourselves,” but that we would bear much fruit. This is not our fruit; it is the fruit of Christ – born of Christ, and brought about by His Spirit, through the vine, and to the branches.

 

The ultimate purpose of man is to glorify God through the fruit we bear. The secular humanist philosophy in our educational systems today teaches, “The chief end of man is man.” The Bible says that the reason we are here is to glorify our Creator. Thank God that through Christ we can bear fruit that glorifies our Father.

 

Spiritual fruit is an eternal fruit, and God wants us to bear much of it. What is this fruit of which we speak? You cannot bear this fruit until you are grafted in with the Lord Jesus Christ. You cannot receive His Spirit until you receive His Son. When a man receives Christ as his Savior, he receives God’s Spirit, and God’s Holy Spirit begins to bear fruit through you. “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith. Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law. And they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.” (Galatians 5:22-25)

 

Notice that it says “the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace…” It does not say, “the fruits of the Spirit.” It is not a list to check off when you have mastered one. All of these attributes are manifested in the life of a person that is controlled or filled by the Holy Spirit. Someone who is allowing Christ’s life to flow through them and is yielding to the Spirit will evidence that Spirit-filled life. It is the fruit that only God can bring.

 

A lady some time ago said, “My husband can be so nice when he wants to be, but he just never wants to be.”

 

That is how we are in our fleshly nature. We just do not want to do what is right. It takes God’s Holy Spirit flowing through us to bring about this fruit of the Spirit. Galatians 5:25 says, “If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.” God’s purpose for our lives is that we would bear much fruit – spiritual fruit, the kind that is only born because of Him.

 

Are you walking in the Spirit each day? Are you glorifying God through the fruit you bear? If you are, then you are experiencing the purpose God has for your life.

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