Peace, Patience, and Self Control

These past few weeks in FUEL we discussed 3 of the "fruits" to finish the four part series on God's Extreme Makeover. We used Galatians 5 and the "fruits of the Spirit" to kick-off each message.
Peace is a good foundation for many of the other fruits. We need to maintain the peace that God offers us. We struggle to do this because of the "enemies of peace" that we have in our lives. These include: noise, fear, anger, information overload, and myself. We react on these enemies by worry, consumption, procrastination, and etc. God wants us to have a peace that would blow us away. It's a peace that can takeover our lives if we can just get our own selfish desires out of the way and allow for God's will to run our lives.
Patience is something we could all use a little more of in life. God teaches us patience through various ways such as the timing of events or answered prayers. God asks us to be patient so that He may accomplish His will. We need to keep our own desires and motivations out of His way. Quit pushing the issue in life and rely on God that He will succeed.
Self control allows us to see God's will come into fulfillment. We can't have self control on our own. It must be led by the Holy Spirit. We need to replace our kingdom with God's so that He can work in our lives. Self control keeps us from giving into temptation and will ultimately allow us find the available hope and love that God offers us. This topic wrapped up our series and is a great beginning to our next topic.