Category Archives: Fruit of the Spirit

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August 23, 2019

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Bible Stories, Fruit of the Spirit, Holy Spirit, Salvation: A New You, Wisdom & Guidance

SEEING INSIDE

But the Lord said to Samuel, “Don’t judge by his appearance or height, for I have rejected him. The Lord doesn’t see things the way you see them. People judge by outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” [1 Samuel 16:7 (NLT)]

crab appleAfter God rejected Saul as king, He sent Samuel to the home of Jesse, telling him that one of Jesse’s sons had been selected as the next king. Samuel was sure he’d found the new king after taking one look at Eliab, Jesse’s eldest boy. Like Saul, Eliab must have been tall, muscular, and handsome, but mere good looks hadn’t served the people well with Saul. Telling Samuel not to judge by outward appearances, God said that He judges by what’s in the heart. In Samuel’s day, only God could see into the heart; that’s not so today!

I recently had an echocardiogram. During this test, high-frequency sound waves, combined with Doppler ultrasound and color Doppler, provided images of my heart’s chambers, valves, and blood flow. The cardiologist then evaluated the size, structure, movement, and strength of my heart to detect any damage, defects or disease. Nevertheless, in spite of being able to actually observe the way my heart functions, she couldn’t see into my heart any better than did Samuel into either Saul’s or Eliab’s.

Although the cardiologist’s report gave the exact dimensions and thickness of each part of my heart, she really doesn’t know if I am big or small hearted, or if my heart is pure, true, honest, compassionate, meek, wise, joyful, willing or good. Although the cardiologist knows my blood flow velocity and cardiac output, she doesn’t know if my heart is hard, cold, haughty, deceitful, broken, bitter, rebellious, stubborn, wicked, heavy, or in need of cleansing. While her conclusion was that, in spite of a few abnormalities, my heart is fine, God is the only one who can truly evaluate it. Moreover, it is He, not a cardiologist, who determines whether or not anyone needs a whole new heart!

As used in Scripture, the heart is the origin of our behavior, expressions and words: our soul or essence. The center of our physical and spiritual life, it does more than pump blood. Holding our beliefs and faith, it is the source of our imagination, inclinations, affections, intentions, desires, ideas, passions, morals, concerns, purposes and will. No matter how skilled the sonographer, how sophisticated his equipment, or how knowledgeable the cardiologist, an echocardiogram can’t show any of that!

Having read my echo report, I know what the cardiologist saw when looking into my heart. The more important report, of course, is what God sees when he looks there. Is it just fine or is there some work that needs to be done?

Put me on trial, Lord, and cross-examine me. Test my motives and my heart. [Psalm 26:2 (NLT)]

Create in me a clean heart, O God. Renew a loyal spirit within me. [Psalm 51:10 (NLT)]

But I, the Lord, search all hearts and examine secret motives. [Jeremiah 17:10a (NLT)]

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August 20, 2019

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Family, Friends & Fellowship, Fruit of the Spirit, God's Grace & Love, Today: Make it Count

MODERN LOVE

Dear children, let’s not merely say that we love each other; let us show the truth by our actions. [1 John 3:18 (NLT)]

Canada Geese

Several years ago, we were celebrating Valentine’s Day with a dinner at one of our favorite restaurants. A young couple was seated next to us and, from the way she kept flashing the shiny diamond on her left hand, it appeared they were newly engaged. I thought how sweet it was for us old married folks to sneak a peek into some young love on this traditional night of romance. Instead of holding hands, however, the couple held their phones. Instead of staring into each other’s eyes, they stared down at their phones. Instead of whispering sweet nothings, they texted, tweeted, Facebooked, or Linked in. They did look up long enough for the waiter to take their picture, which was instantly sent off to the cloud somewhere. The only time they touched was when they posed for the requisite selfies. The phones were lowered only when a glass or fork was raised. Unless they were texting one another (which is a distinct possibility), the few times I saw them speak was to share something on their phones.

“What happened to romance?” I wondered. What happened to conversation? What happened to touch, eye contact, or even laughter? When did it become more vital to share our thoughts with the world than with the person beside us? When did it become more important to memorialize an event digitally than to live the event while it is happening? When did it become more imperative to show the world our faces than to show our loved ones our hearts?

Part of me wanted to grab their phones away and warn them that love needs more than on-line posts and a relationship can’t be maintained with 280-character tweets. I’m just an old married lady, but even I know that love requires work and that Google, Alexa, and Siri don’t have all the answers. Love is far more than looking good for the rest of the world; love is being good with and for one another. Being loved and being able to love are gifts from God. Although I said nothing to them, I did pray for them. If I’d had their numbers, I might have texted Paul’s words from 1 Corinthians 13 that have guided us in our marriage. Maybe then they would have noticed one another.

Recently, I watched a young family at another restaurant. Both mother and father had their noses in their phones the entire evening and their two children were busy with their individual tablets: one watching a movie and the other playing a game. The only time they looked away from their devices was to speak with the waitress. I couldn’t help but remember that twosome many Valentine’s Days ago. If they’re even still together, is this what their family meals are like?

Let us never mistake simply being there with being present. Love is far more than just the presence of our bodies—it’s our mental and emotional presence, as well! While our cell phones and tablets connect us with the world, that connection must never be at the expense of truly connecting, face to face, with one another! If we ever hope to truly connect, we first must disconnect.

Don’t just pretend to love others. Really love them. Hate what is wrong. Hold tightly to what is good. Love each other with genuine affection, and take delight in honoring each other. [Romans 12:9-10 (NLT)]

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July 29, 2019

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Faith & Hope, Fruit of the Spirit, Knowing Him, Love & Works, Salvation: A New You

WHICH IS MORE IMPORTANT?

Dear friends, do you think you’ll get anywhere in this if you learn all the right words but never do anything? Does merely talking about faith indicate that a person really has it? For instance, you come upon an old friend dressed in rags and half-starved and say, “Good morning, friend! Be clothed in Christ! Be filled with the Holy Spirit!” and walk off without providing so much as a coat or a cup of soup—where does that get you? Isn’t it obvious that God-talk without God-acts is outrageous nonsense? [James 2:14-17 (MSG)]

Which can you do without? The right side of your heart or the left? Which blade on the scissors wouldn’t be missed? What is more important? The front wheel or the back one on your bicycle? The gas pedal or the brakes on your car? The right wing or the left of an airplane? Faith or works? Neither! None of these things can operate without the other. We need two blades on the scissors, two wings on the plane and we can’t be Christians without both faith and works.

We sometimes use the word “Christian” simply as an adjective to describe good, generous, moral or loving behavior. I have Jewish, Muslim and non-believer friends who easily could be described with those same adjectives. Good works alone cannot be used to define Christianity. On the other hand, I know people who say they believe in Jesus and call themselves “Christian” who appear to be sorely lacking in the good, generous, moral and love departments. So simply saying we have “faith” in Christ doesn’t seem to define Christianity either.

Our faith makes us Christians but that faith is far more than intellectual belief. Because the Holy Spirit comes along with faith, our faith is God at work in us. True faith changes our hearts, minds and souls. Since the Holy Spirit can’t help but do good works, if we have faith, neither can we!

Works follow from faith and yet faith, without works, cannot be faith. We can neither think our way nor can we work our way into heaven but, by the grace of God, with faith, we will live our way there!

Faith without works is like a bird without wings; though she may hop with her companions on earth, yet she will never fly with them to heaven. [Francis Beaumont]

I can already hear one of you agreeing by saying, “Sounds good. You take care of the faith department, I’ll handle the works department.” Not so fast. You can no more show me your works apart from your faith than I can show you my faith apart from my works. Faith and works, works and faith, fit together hand in glove. [James 2:18 (MSG)]

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July 3, 2019

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Attitudes & Behavior, Challenges & Difficulty, Fruit of the Spirit, Patience & Perseverance, Temptation & Sin, Wisdom & Guidance

UH-OH!

Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides. You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors. So don’t try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it do its work so you become mature and well-developed, not deficient in any way. [James 1:2-4 (MSG)]

double rainbowThe most obvious way God speaks is through the Bible. Sometime, however, He whispers to us in the “Aha!” moments. Serendipitous, they are God’s love notes that gently remind us of His presence, His love for us, and the magnificence of His creation. While they vary from person to person, I tend to find them in things like butterflies dancing among the flowers or a double rainbow after a spring storm.

God speaks louder with those wonderful “Oh, yes!” moments—the joyful times when all seems right with the world. We recognize His voice when the healthy baby arrives, the surgeon says the word “benign,” or the prodigal returns home. Along with the welcome “Oh, yes!” moments are the unwelcome “Oh, no!” ones—times when the bottom falls out of our world. They come with words like “malignant” or “inoperable,” a phone call in the middle of the night, or in the ICU. In all of these occasions, we quickly seek God with either our incredible feelings of thanks and praise or in our deep sense of desperation and need. The only way we can make sense of either the awe or the awfulness of life is to believe and trust in our all-powerful and loving God who knows exactly what He’s doing.

While I can find God in the “Aha,” awesome and awful, my problem comes with God’s ”Uh-oh!” moments—the unexpected and unasked for minor frustrations of life. It seems easier to turn to God in the extremes than in the routine detours, roadblocks, and nuisances of everyday life. We all have them—waiting on hold for ten minutes only to get disconnected, losing the car keys, anything that involves technical support or the DMV (and possibly the post office), waiting all day for the repairman who never shows or engaging in wrap rage while trying to open a child-proof package! These are the moments when my fruit looks far more like impatience, peevishness, self-pity, childishness, and rudeness than anything produced by the Spirit.

We often talk about the joy and peace we have as Christians but rarely about how we deal (or fail to deal) with irritation and frustration. While the emotion isn’t sinful, often how we act in response to it is. The enemy doesn’t have to tempt us with a cannon when an annoying barrage of pellets from his BB gun will make us forget who we are and in whose arms we are held!

I doubt that I’m the only one who has difficulty maintaining perspective and patience in the face of the little aggravations that are part and parcel of living in our world. Perhaps it’s because we think those minor annoyances are solely our concern when, in actuality, like everything else, they belong to God! Focusing on whatever is upsetting us simply makes it grow in importance but focusing on God shrinks it back to size. Let us remember that our God listens—not just to our praise, thanks and heavy-duty pleas, but also to our prayers for perspective, patience and peace. It’s by focusing on God that we can turn those “Oh-oh” moments into “OK!” ones!

So if you’re serious about living this new resurrection life with Christ, act like it. Pursue the things over which Christ presides. Don’t shuffle along, eyes to the ground, absorbed with the things right in front of you. Look up, and be alert to what is going on around Christ—that’s where the action is. See things from his perspective. [Colossians 3:1-2 (MSG)]

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May 30, 2019

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Attitudes & Behavior, Bible Stories, Fruit of the Spirit, God's Word: The Bible, Knowing Him, Obedience, Prayer, Salvation: A New You, Wisdom & Guidance

GUARD YOUR GATES [THE HOLY WAR – Part 1]

He burned down the Temple of the Lord, the royal palace, and all the houses of Jerusalem. He destroyed all the important buildings in the city. Then he supervised the entire Babylonian army as they tore down the walls of Jerusalem on every side. [2 Kings 25:9-10 (NLT)]

Schoonhoven - city gate

Jerusalem was heavily fortified and completely protected by walls over thirty-nine feet high and eight feet thick. In 586 BC, the Babylonian forces of King Nebuchadnezzar breached those seemingly impregnable walls and Jerusalem was burned, the city’s walls torn down, and the people taken captive. The city’s walls were rebuilt by Nehemiah 141 years later but they were again breached in 70 AD by the Romans who destroyed the city, demolished the second Temple, and massacred much of the population.

Published in 1682, John Bunyan’s allegory The Holy War tells of another fortified city’s fall. Bunyan’s walled city of Mansoul had five gates: Eye-gate, Ear-gate, Mouth-gate, Nose-gate and Feel-gate. Rather than Babylonians or Romans, Mansoul’s enemy was Diabolus. Unlike Jerusalem’s, Mansoul’s gates could not be breached or opened from the outside. They could only be forced if someone within the city allowed it. In short, sin could only enter if someone permitted its entrance. Diabolus and his then invisible army sat down in front of Ear-gate and assaulted it with fraud, guile, and hypocrisy. With the deaths of Captain Resistance and Lord Innocence, the townspeople looked at the tree of forbidden fruit, tasted it, forgot their good King Shaddai, opened both Ear and Eye-gate, and Mansoul came under the rule of Diabolus.

The Holy War is a none too subtle allegory that makes its point: walled cities can fall and city gates can be breached, if not from the outside, then from within. Like the city of Mansoul, sin will tempt and try to seduce us but it can’t force its way into our lives; it only enters by invitation. We alone are the ones who determine what we look at, hear, touch, feel, smell, say and do. Satan didn’t force Eve to eat that fruit, Cain to kill Abel, Jacob to deceive his father, the Israelites to worship a golden calf, Samson to dally with Delilah, David to take Bathsheba, Jonah to run away from Nineveh, King Ahaz to sacrifice his son, Herod to decapitate John, Judas to betray Jesus, or Peter to deny Him. These people freely opened their gates to temptation and allowed sin entrance into their lives.

An inevitable part of life, temptation is not a sin; it is a trial of faith. Mansoul’s sin was not in hearing the lies of Diabolous—it lay in believing and acting upon them. Sin happens when we drop our guard, open our gates, and allow it into our lives. God has given us a conscience, self-discipline, His word, and the Holy Spirit to defend our gates; whether or not we open ourselves to sin always remains our choice. Let us be cautious as to who and what enters our gates!

Temptation is the devil looking through the keyhole. Yielding is opening the door and inviting him in. [Billy Sunday]

But let us who live in the light be clearheaded, protected by the armor of faith and love, and wearing as our helmet the confidence of our salvation. [1 Thessalonians 5:8 (NLT)]

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May 24, 2019

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Attitudes & Behavior, Fruit of the Spirit, Knowing Him, Love & Works, Salvation: A New You, Temptation & Sin, Wisdom & Guidance

TALKATIVE

For the Kingdom of God is not just a lot of talk; it is living by God’s power. [1 Corinthians 4:20 (NLT)]

maccawWhen John Bunyan wrote The Pilgrim’s Progress, he was concerned both with the godless unbeliever and the casual and superficial believer: the nominal or counterfeit Christian. We all know them: people who may look and talk a lot like Christians but don’t live like one. Without even realizing it, we may even be one!

When Christian and Faithful encounter Mr. Talkative, Faithful initially considers the man a fine companion; he’s enthusiastic, speaks well and knows his Scripture. Christian, who knew Talkative in his hometown, warns Faithful that, “Religion has no place in his heart, or house, or lifestyle. The man’s religion is found only in his tongue rather than in him.”  Known as a saint abroad and a devil at home, Christian says Talkative is the sort of man who’s better looking from a distance. Although he can talk about faith, repentance, being reborn, and prayer, like the Pharisees, he doesn’t practice what he preaches. Christian then points out that Talkative isn’t even aware of the difference between speaking and being; he’s deceived himself into thinking that hearing and talking are all he needs to be a good Christian. “Knowing is a thing that pleases talkers and boasters, but doing is the thing that pleases God,” agrees Faithful.

Testing his new companion and cautioning him not to give an answer to which God would not give an “Amen!” Faithful asks Talkative, ”Does your religion exist in word or tongue and not in deed and truth?” Balking at giving a reply, Talkative leaves the men. After Christian points out, “Just as a body without the soul is dead, so talking by itself is but a dead carcass,” Faithful promises that he’ll pay closer attention to the distinction between talking and doing in the future.

Faithful observes that just as a prostitute is a shame to all women, a man like Talkative is a shame to all true believers. Christian adds that the number of people whose religion is in their words rather than their life is the reason religion stinks in the nostrils of so many men. We don’t have to be well-known evangelists caught in financial or sexual improprieties to give Christianity a bad name. We just have to be like Talkative: people whose religion is found only in their words rather than their hearts and actions.

I wondered at my answer to Faithful’s question; does my religion exist in word or tongue (or, in my case, web page) and not in deed and truth? What would be your answer to Faithful’s question? More important, would God shout a loud ”Amen!” in agreement to our answers? Let us always remember that faith without works is dead and it takes far more than words to be Christ’s witnesses.

The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians: who acknowledge Jesus with their lips, walk out the door, and deny Him by their lifestyle. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable. [Kevin Max]

What good is it, dear brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but don’t show it by your actions? Can that kind of faith save anyone? … Now someone may argue, “Some people have faith; others have good deeds.” But I say, “How can you show me your faith if you don’t have good deeds? I will show you my faith by my good deeds.” … Just as the body is dead without breath, so also faith is dead without good works. [James 2:14,18,26 (NLT)]

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