Dear brethren, 
   
My wife and I are over in Honolulu as I write this letter to you.  It has been well over a year since we last visited our brethren in the islands, and we are excited to be here.  We had dinner last evening with Jimmy and Florence Lum, and it was very nice to catch up on both of them.  Both have been faithful to their calling many years through the challenges life presents as the years pass.  

Tomorrow we will be meeting with them and another lady who is visiting here as well, and on Pentecost we travel to Maui to visit with the brethren and have services there in the morning.  

On Monday we will fly to the Big Island of Hawaii to spend time with the brethren there and catch up on what is happening with the Kilauea volcano which now has fissures in 21 places .  It has been spewing rocks hundreds of feet and has a smoke and ash flume which reaches 30,000 feet.  

 Scientists are watching it very carefully, but realize this is an island and the inhabitants are subject to what happens with no quick way to escape. Thus far all are safe on the island, but please pray that remains the case.  We know God's power is greater than any volcano!

As we ponder Pentecost often when we think of the gifts of the Holy Spirit.  When we think about gifts we think of speaking in tongues, the performance of  miraculous healings, or a keen insight into prophecy, and in the world some claim to have these gifts but really they do not!

In the book of Gal. 5:22-23 the fruits of the Holy Spirit are "...love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,  meekness, temperance: against such there is no law."

These virtues should be at the very core of a disciple of Christ  led by the Holy Spirit.  We ought to strive to mortify the carnal drives of the flesh and walk in the spirit of these splendid qualities. 
In fact in Gal. 5:24 (ASV) it says, "And they that are of Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with the passions and the lusts thereof."

We work to eradicate those things which are against the fruits of the spirit.  This is an ongoing battle within our minds, and  we must keep pushing forward to bring in the right characteristics befitting of the Holy Spirit.    
 
The first fruit of the spirit the Apostle Paul mentions  is love.  In the Greek the word is agape..  As most know, there are two other Greek words for love in the Bible, philia, which is brotherly love, and eros, which is erotic love between husband and wife in marriage.  The word agape is a godly love. 

Loving the way God loves is the goal we should strive for in our relationships with one another.  Paul says this in Gal 5:26, "Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another."

Paul strikes at the core of carnality which is vanity or conceit.  This could be described as thinking we are better than someone else or envying someone else because we think they get all the blessings.  Paul says get rid of that because that isn't agape love!  
  
The Apostle Paul says  we should covet the best gifts.( I Cor 12:31)   He told the Corinthians he would show them the more excellent way, and he wrote one of the most famous pieces of literature in the world we call the love chapter.  Paul puts all gifts in perspective in I Cor 13:1-3:

"Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. 2 And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing."

                                         
Paul goes on to show the actions of godly love in I Cor 13:4-8:

"Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; 5 does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; 6 does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; 7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8 Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away."

 
Since the time when Holy Spirit  was given to the Church on Pentecost in 31AD, agape love has been and  is the most important gift to strive for as disciples of Jesus Christ.  Growing in the fruits of the Holy Spirit allows God to convey other gifts to His people, but as true disciples, we must first lay the foundation of agape love.     

Have an enriching weekly Sabbath and an uplifting, informative Feast of Pentecost!      
      
Your pastor and friend,                                             
Jim Tuck