The Fruits and Effects He Produces (and others)

The Fruits and Effects He Produces (and others)

"When He comes, He will convict the world about sin, righteousness, and judgment" (John 16:8).

Where the Holy Spirit is, there will always be deep conviction of sin - and true repentance for it. It is His special office to convict of sin.

He shows the exceeding holiness of God. 

He teaches the exceeding corruption and infirmity of our nature.

He strips us of our blind self-righteousness.

He opens our eyes to our awful guilt, folly and danger.

He fills the heart with sorrow, contrition, and abhorrence for sin - as the abominable thing which God hates.

He who knows nothing of all this, and saunters carelessly through life, thoughtless about sin, and indifferent and unconcerned about his soul - is a dead man before God! He has not the Holy Spirit.

The presence of the Holy Spirit in a man's heart can only be known by the fruits and effects He produces. Mysterious and invisible to mortal eye as His operations are - they always lead to certain visible and tangible results.

Just as you know there is life in a tree by its sap, buds, leaves and fruits - just so you may know the Spirit to be in a man's heart by the influence He exercises over his thoughts, affections, opinions, habits, and life. I lay this down broadly and unhesitatingly. I see it clearly marked out in our Lord Jesus Christ's words, "Every tree is known by his own fruit" (Luke 6:44.)

~J. C. Ryle~

(The End)
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All Others Are Walking To Perdition!

"Enoch walked with God" (Genesis 5:24).

Walking with God! is this our religion? Does this aptly set forth our life? It makes no difference to which church we belong, nor what creed we adopt, nor what ceremonies we profess, nor what zeal for religious things we have - if we are not walking with God!

Reconciliation with Him through faith in our Lord Jesus Christ; a habitual acting as in His sight and with a view to His approbation, and a life of devotional communion with Him - is true religion - in whomever or wherever found.

Walking with God? Is this religion ours? 

Do we intelligently, experimentally, know the meaning of that phrase - walking with God? Let us set it down before us, look at it, ponder it, and never cease to study it, until we know its meaning, and feel its force!

None are walking to heaven, but those who are walking with God! All others are walking to perdition! We hear a great deal about other things that are connected with religion - its doctrines, its forms, its creeds - but walking with God is true religion. If we know nothing of this, we know nothing of true piety!

It is walking with God - and not any external matter, that distinguishes the real from the nominal Christian! 

And it is "close walking with God" which distinguishes the earnest Christian from the comparatively lukewarm one. The earnest Christian walks closely with God, presses, so to speak, to His very side; while the other, like Peter, during his season of cowardice, follows afar off.

"Walk humbly with your God" (Micah 6:8).

~John Angell James~