S.

S 1 NOTES SECOND TERM CRS

FAITH AND WORK
Faith can be defined as the assurance of things hoped for, the
conviction of things not seen. Faith is the act of believing in
someone, something or an action even when it is yet to
happen. It is a genuine trust in someone for what he can do. A
person keeps his trust even when the situation looks shaky
and differs from what he expected.
Works on the other hand is simply the manifestation of
practical terms of faith, belief and doctrine.
Work is very important in the establishment of our faith.
Christian works makes faith effective. James explains that
faith without work is dead. So, work gives life to faith. A
Christian’s works includes giving, caring and sheltering those
who do not have especially fellow Christians. Christian work
is attached to faith because you cannot obey whosoever you
do not have faith in and this is salvation by faith.

According to James faith without work is dead. James teaches

that faith which does not have practical demonstration is
dead. James said, ‘Be doer of the word and not hearers only
[James 1: 22]. In other words, when we hear the word of God
we are supposed to put into practice.
The word of God is compared to mirror which shows a man
the spots and the problem on his face. The word of God show
us our sins and our true conditions so that we may change
when a man hears the word and does not put into practice
and allowed it to influence his life positively, he becomes like
a man who looks at himself in a mirror and seeing the spots
on his face, he immediately walks away forgetting his
problems. We should put into work the word of God by living
in obedience to it as otherwise our faith will be in vain.
MORAL LESSONS
1. Faith is a very important thing to Christians.
2. Christians must be caring and helpful so as to establish
their faith.
3. Obedience to God’s commandment is part of faith in
Christ.
4. You must have faith in God to gain His favour.

THE FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT

To Christians, the Holy Spirit is a very important person. It is
believed that He is the third person in the Trinity which also
has the Father (God) and the son (Jesus). In the context of this
work, He is referred t as the spirit. This study however
recognises that the spirit has a fruit with features Christians
are meant to and expected to bear in their lives.
The fruit of the Holy Spirit refers to the manifestation of
Christ’s nature in the life of a Christian filled with the Holy
Spirit. As described by Paul to the Galatians, there is just one
fruit containing these elements: love, joy, peace, patience,
kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
Paul listed the work of the flesh in Galatians. Works of the
flesh are bad things we love to do but which we should avoid.
They are sweet things people like to engage in. they are
 fleshy passions and desires. They includes
fornication,impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmity,
strife, jealousy, anger, selfishness, dissension, party spirit,
envy, drunkenness, carousing and other similar things.
All these things are opposite of the fruit of spirit. Whosoever
engages in them will not be able to manifest the fruit of the
spirit.
HOW TO BEAR FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT
1. To repent and pray for forgiveness of your sins
2. Believe in your heart that God raised Jesus from the
dead.
3. Confess Jesus as Lord with your lips
4. Be baptised in the name of Jesus
5. Study the word of God
6. Pray for the Holy Spirit
MORAL LESSONS
1. We must work towards developing the fruit of the spirit
2. We must avoid the works of the flesh
3. We must learn to repent when/anytime we sin against
God so that works of the flesh will not prevail over us
4. Study and listen to the word of God as often as possible.
Study has showed that there is a contrary relationship
between the fruit of the spirit and the works of the flesh.
Christians should confess their sin and be good and healthy
Christians, to be transformed. Steps should be taken to have
the elements of the fruit of the spirit and to avoid totally the
works of the flesh.
 SPIRITUAL GIFTS AND TALENTS
[1st Cor. 12:4-8; Eph. 4:12-16 ]
A gift is what is given out or receive free without anything
expected to return. They can also be called presents.
Presents or gifts are not meant to be monitored after they are
given. Spiritual gifts are special abilities positive
manifestations or charisma given to Christian to be used in
the church for the edification, development and benefits of
the church. Spiritual gifts are not tangible. It means they
cannot be seen or held physical but can only be manifested
and felt.
Talents are skills, special abilities and endowments given to
human beings by God through genes and natural creation e.g
singing, drawing, eloquence and many others while spiritual
gifts are gift wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, working of
miracles, prophecy, ability to distinguish between various
kinds of tongues and interpretation of tongues.

USES AND VALUES OF SPIRITUAL GIFTS.

1. Equipping the saints
2. Building up the body of Christ.
3. Attaining the unity of faith.
 4. Developing our knowledge of Jesus as the son of God
5. Attaining maturity for the body of Christ.
6. To be united in the doctrine of Christian faith
7. For the church to grow properly.
8. To understand all mysteries.

DIFFERENCES BETWEEN SPIRITUAL GIFTS AND

TALENTS
Spiritual gifts and Talents looks similar but they are not totally
the same. They have differences despite the fact that they
both point towards the manifestation of special gifts.
1. Talents are acquired through training and genetic ability.
This means that talents are natural and developed while
spiritual gifts are purely divine and spiritual
2. Talents are developed by anybody while spiritual gifts are
given to Christians only.
3. Talents can be turned to a profession or any hobby while
spiritual gifts cannot be turned into a profession or
hobby.
4. Talents are used to entertain while spiritual gifts are not.
However both were given by God and should be used to
glorify God. Both can be present in man’s life.

FORGIVENESS
[ 2nd Cor. 5: 18-19, Matt. 6: 12-15, 2nd Cor. 2: 5-11 ]
Forgiveness is a decision to let go of or give up grudges,
bitterness, anger in your heart against someone who
offended you. Forgiveness is the act which helps you to
pardon the offender. It helps you to decide not to think of
revenge but to show mercy to someone has done something
bad to you or hurt you.
Types of forgiveness:- there are three types of forgiveness :
[1] Self forgiveness which means forgiving yourself.
[2] Forgiving others
[3] Forgiveness from God.
Paul message on forgiveness explain to the brethren at
Corinth not to regard the insult of their members to him too
severely, because public disapproval of an offender is
sufficient punishment. They should rather, forgive and
comfort the person, otherwise he would be weighed down by
excessive sorrow. They should reaffirm their love for such a
person. He further made it clear to them that whomever they
forgave were also forgiven him.

HOW TO RECEIVE FORGIVENESS [ 1 John 1: 9-10 ]

1. Realised that we have sinned
2. Accept the fact that we have sinned and repent of it
3. Confess it to God and ask for forgiveness
HOW TO FORGIVE OTHERS.
1. Choose and decide to forgive the PERSON.
2. Pray to God to help you reconcile with the person
3. Approach the person and talk about the offence
4. Try not to think about the offence again
 5. Then go back to normal
THE EFFECTS OF UNFORGIVENESS.
To many people, forgiveness is a difficult or impossible task.
However, we have seen how God Himself forgives us and urge
us to forgive others.
1. Imprison our mind
2. Dictate our actions
3. Be unhealthy because we will always think about it
4. Continue in sin and end up in hell
5. Fail to receive forgiveness from God.

THE FAMILY
[ Colossians 3: 18 – 21 ]
A family is made up of a man as the husband, a woman
as the wife and their children with or without any other
relatives.
A family is made up of those who care for and love
another. They are related by blood. The existence of
children in our home makes the husband become father
and also the wife mother. Families are the foundation of
any society. The society grows when families give birth
to more children.
TYPES OF FAMILY
[1] Nuclear Family
[2] Extended Family
 RIGHT AND DUTIES OF FAMILY MEMBERS
Each family member has a role to play to make it
function well. Paul recognised the role of every member
of the family and used these roles to describe the nature
of our relationship with one another in the church. Paul
taught that husbands should love their wives and not
harsh with them. He said that wives should be subject to
their husbands. Wives should also be submissive and not
be abusive or arrogant because such attitudes were
against God’s role for them in the home. Paul
encouraged children to obey their parents in everything.
He said fathers should not provoke their children anger.

VALUES FOUND IN GOOD FAMILY RELATIONSHIP

When every member of a family fulfils their roles, the
following values will be found in such a family.
1. Love among members of the family
2. Peace and harmony.
3. They will enjoy God’s care and protection.
4. The family will have a good name in the society
5. They will be able to contribute positively to the
development of the society.
6. They will be good examples of Christians to others in the
society.
7. It will make members of the family healthy.
CONSEQUENCES OF FAMILY MEMBERS’ FAILURE
TO FULFIL THEIR ROLES
1. There will be unhappiness
 2. The children will be unruly and hooligans.
3. There will be fights and rancour
4. Irresponsibility.
There may be separation and divorce eventually

HUMILITY
[ PHIL. 2: 1-11 ]
Humility is the state of being humble, meek, lowly, and
modest. It also means lowliness of mind, absence of pride,
arrogance or boastfulness.
Humility is one of the greatest attributes of a good Christians.
Without humility, one’s claim to be a Christian is not genuine.
WAYS OF DEMONSTRATING HUMILITY
1. Obedience to supreme authority.
2. Not boasting about one’s talents but using them to
serving God and our fellow men.
3. Feeling concerned about the needs of others
4. Counting others better than ourselves
5. Obedience to our parents or elders’ instructions
6. Forgiving those who might have offended us
7. Ensuring peace and harmony in the society in which we
belong
8. Being law abiding
9. Showing love to one another
10. Not being arrogant
BENEFITS OF HUMILITY
1. Humility makes living/societal interaction easier.
2. It leads to selflessness
3. It attracts respects
 4. It promotes tolerance and consensus
5. It creates harmony among people

PAUL TEACHING ON HUMILITY

In Paul’s letter to the Philippians much emphasis was placed
on humility. It is an important Christian’s virtue; and it is this
quality he instructed the people to portray in the lives as
children of God.
He reminded them that if their claim to be united with Christ
is genuine, they should purge themselves of selfishness and
conceit and embrace humility. They were not to be self-
centred. Instead, they should consider the interest of others
above their own. According to Paul, humility breeds love as
shown by Jesus Christ whose life was free from selfishness,
personal ambition and prestige seeking. The virtues should be
emulated by Christian. Jesus humbles himself even to death
on the cross and God rewarded Him by exalting him and
giving Him the name above all names.
CONSEQUENCES OF PRIDE
1. God hates the proud but promote humble
2. The proud reaps the reward of his pride which is rejection
by God and man
3. Pride creates misunderstanding and lack of progress in
the society
4. Pride goes before a fall. It means the proud is always
humbled/ put to shame
 CIVIC RESPONSIBILITY
[ROM 13: 1-7 ]
Every government is created for the peace, order and progress
of the society. Without a responsible government, the society
will be open to disaster. In the same way, no government can
achieve its objectives without the proper support of the
individuals in the state.
Christianity is not a religion practised without regard to the
government and the entire society. It is a right practice of
Christianity for Christians to obey the ruling authority, pay
taxes, show honour to which honour is due, above all, lives a
life that will be worthy examples to others.
Paul advised the Roman Christians to be subjects to the
governing authority. He made them recognise that rulers are
God’s representatives. Disobedience to governing authority
means disobedience to God.
Paul also made them realise that the rulers exist for the good
of the society, and that those who show good conduct are
friends to the rulers, while the lawless and non-conformists
are enemies to the rulers.
He concluded with an instruction that they should eschew
such negative tendencies as drunkenness, debauchery,
licentiousness, quarrelling and jealousy: but put on the
armour of light by exhibiting a lifestyle worthy of emulation,
as a mark of people in Christ.
GOOD CITIZENSHIP.
Good citizenship is an act of exhibiting one’s role as a good
citizen of our country. A good citizen must practise love and
obey all commandments. A good citizen must humble himself
and give respect to those in authority, give honour to whom
honour is due.
Peter set out the duties of Christians towards earthly
authorities. They were to be subject, for the sake of the Lord,
to every governing institution of the society. Such institution
included the emperor as the supreme authority, or the
governors whose powers were derived from the emperor.
Such institutions are set up for the benefits of the society.
They punish the offenders, while those who do right enjoy
the praises and blessings of the authorities. They were asked
to live as free men without using their freedom as a pretext
for evil; rather, they should live as servants of God, whose
lives should influence the life of the wicked.