The nine fruits of the Holy Spirit from Galatians 5:22-23 is an ‘individual’s’ inner or external experience affirming that the Holy Spirit is governing his/her life. However, in a greater scope within the house church, the fruit of the Spirit is an experience born from the ‘relationships between the people.’ Among the nine fruits, “self control/temperance” is a gift from the Holy Spirit that grows in maturity when we serve each other.
Self control implies not only refraining from “what you shouldn’t do” but also doing “what you should do.” This is because when you do something you should do, you’ll naturally refrain from doing what you shouldn’t do. The same idea goes to self control on money as well. In this world, there are those who are poor and stingy, and those who are poor but give plentifully. At the same time, there are those who are rich and stingy but also those who do not have enough but share in abundance with faith in God. This is why I pray that we christians enjoy plentiful material possessions, but when it comes to sharing, we can become the hands of God and can give to others more than what we possess.
Throughout my ministry, I have witnessed many cases of how such self control is playing a role in our spiritual lives. I learned that we cannot measure the fruit of the Holy Spirit by how rich we are financially, but rather if we ‘let’ the Holy Spirit, who gives purpose and meaning to our life, work within us, we will run into challenges. Some run away when the Spirit allows difficulties in our life, but some enjoy the challenge. In house churches, only those who accept the challenge and fight the difficulties can testify how the Spirit is working within our spiritual life and bearing fruit of self control. This is because such fruit is the result of their relationship with God.
When hosting house church seminars, I have seen such fruits of self control in action. For example, we often run into difficult situations when assigning seminar attendees to someone’s house for lodging or finding a Mokjang for them to stay with. However, such situations become opportunities to exercise self control and to gauge where we are in spiritual maturity. After the pandemic, people complained about “Pandemic fatigue” and used it as an excuse to escape from their responsibilities. However, house church communities took this time of hardship as an opportunity to progress, stepping up in their faith and bearing the fruit of self control. It was a thankful experience.
The world is rapidly changing around us; we Christians should be able to discern it from the perspective of the kingdom of God. In this world, which will soon be under God's judgment, we need to be more courageous in our faith. And with self control we need to prove to the world that when it comes to sharing the grace of God, we are never short of anything. If you find yourself changing your priorities in your life just so that you can serve VIPs and Mokjang members more, you are bearing the fruits of self control. You will find that you will experience God if you overcome your difficult situations rather than avoid it. No matter what challenges you are facing in your life, apply self control wisely when taking a step forward in your faith so you can be affirmative in what to do and be decisive in what not to do. Then house churches will blossom with the fruit of the Holy Spirit that self control brings.