The fruit of the Spirit
Galatians 5:22-23 (ESV) The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control
In his book Hidden in Plain Sight: The Secret of More,
author and pastor Mark Buchanan illustrates God's love through the story of Tracy. He writes:
Tracy
is one of the worship leaders at our church. One Sunday, as she sat at
the piano, she talked about the difficult week she'd just been through.
It was chaotic, she said—a mess of petty crises on top of a rash of
minor accidents, all mixed up in a soup can of crazy busyness. It had
left her weary and cranky. She got up that Sunday to lead worship and
felt spent, with nothing more to give.
However,
Tracy's 8-year-old daughter, Brenna, helped her gain new perspective
earlier that morning. When Tracy had walked into the living room, the
window was covered with scrawl. Using a crayon, Brenna had scribbled
something across the picture window, top to bottom and side to side.
At first, it seemed like one more mess for Tracy to clean up. Then she saw what Brenna had written: love, joy, peace, patience, kindnece, goodnece, faithfulnece, gentlnece and selfcantrol (in Brenna's delightful spelling).
Mark
writes: "Tracy stopped, drank it in. Her heart flooded with light. It
was exactly what she needed to be reminded about: the gift of the fruit
of the Spirit that arises, not by our circumstances, but by Christ
within us.
And then Tracy noticed one more thing Brenna had written at the edge of the window: Love one another. Only Brenna, in her creative spelling, had written: Love won another."
As Mark concludes: "It's what Jesus has been trying to tell us all along. You were won that way. Now go and do likewise."
John 15:4 (ESV)
Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself,
unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me.
1. Love
1 Corinthians 13:1-3 (ESV) If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And
if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all
knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have
not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up
my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.
2. Joy
Hebrews 12:1-2 (ESV) Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
3. Peace
Philippians 4:7 (ESV) And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
4. Patience
1 Timothy 1:16 (ESV) But
I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus
Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who
were to believe in him for eternal life.
5. Kindness
Romans 2:4 (ESV)
Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and
patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to
repentance?
6. Goodness
Titus 3:4-5 (ESV)
But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared,
he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but
according to his own mercy
7. Faithfulness
2 Timothy 2:2 (ESV) What you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.
8. Gentleness
1 Peter 3:15-16 (ESV)
In your hearts regard Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to
make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is
in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect,
9. Self-control
Proverbs 25:28 (ESV) A man without self-control is like a city broken into and left without walls.
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