CUSTODY OF JESUS

“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

King James Version

A couple of days ago as I watched a custody battle on television involving a man and woman who were recently divorced to be granted permanent custody of their son, I thought to myself “How wonderful it would be if we were to have custody battles over who gets Jesus”. However, it is just the opposite with our precious Saviour. Instead of people fighting to get Him; they are fighting to get Him out of the school and every place they can. How this must break the heart of Jesus. O that we would love Him so much that we would fight over who gets Him!

Not only do we need to take custody of Jesus in our lives, we also need to take custody of His peace, kindness, compassion, unconditional love and forgiveness in our hearts. We don’t have the kind of love that Jesus wants us to have for one another. It is only by allowing Him to take away all the resentment, criticism, jealousy, anger and hatred from our hearts and allowing Him to replace them with His goodness, unconditional love and forgiveness for others that we are able to serve Him effectively, the way He wants us to serve Him.

It is extremely important that we take custody of His smiles, His hugs and His compassion. It is only as we hug others for Jesus and have a smile on our faces instead of a frown that we will be able to lead them to our precious and loving Saviour. If they don’t see the peace, joy and happiness that Jesus can give to someone who has committed their hearts to Him in our own lives, they will have no desire to be saved. How can we expect to lead our children to Jesus if they don’t see the difference He makes in our own lives? Our children will have no desire to go to church with us or accept Him as their personal Saviour because they can spot a phony a mile away.

We have an urgent responsibility to crucify our flesh by resisting the temptations that satan and the world puts in front of us. We can’t do this on our own. It takes the power of our risen Saviour working in our hearts to help us resist going to places that we used to go and to keep us from doing and saying things that we used to do and say before we were saved. It is very important that we do not hang around with the same crowd that we did before Jesus gloriously saved us because it only takes one person to lead us astray.

When people look at you, do they see the fruits of the Spirit? Do they see smiles and joy on your face or do they see a frown? Is your speech seasoned with gentleness and forgiveness? Are you hugging others to Jesus? Most important of all, are you hugging Jesus? Are you spending time with Him? Is He the most important person in your life and does He have the first priority in everything that you do? Are you walking in the Spirit or are you walking in the flesh?

Joanne Lowe
September 4, 2007