June 30, 2021 TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE
Galatians 5:22-26 “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit. Let us not become boastful, challenging one another, envying one another.”
If we think we are responsible for having all of the attributes listed above, we are doomed to frustration and failure. No matter how sincere we are and no matter how hard we try, we will never be able to produce the fruit that only the Spirit can produce. We tend to ‘work on the list;’ for example, we may be doing pretty good in self-control, but not so good in being patience. And, we tend to think in terms of God re-furbishing us instead of making us new creations-a new species of beings. This list of attributes is not a list we must work on. It is important to note that the fruit of the Spirit is singular; it’s a package deal. It is natural for man to want to take charge, and to believe that the outcome is up to him-and that is where we can get spiritually derailed. We are to be responsible, and we need to be productive. However, all we do and all we are should flow out of the work of the Spirit who lives in us. Having the Spirit of God living in us is a game-changer! Rather than us trying to figure life out and why things are as they are and wondering what the future holds, we can live our lives as responders and followers of the Spirt of God. I understand that that sounds too simple and too good to be true-but it is the true. Colossians 3:15 tells us to “Let the peace of Christ rule in our hearts,” Letting is not doing; ‘letting’ has the idea of us responding to something outside of ourselves. When we lay aside ourselves and our ways and let the Holy Spirit have His way in us, wonderful things happen, and we experience the package deal of the fruit of the Spirit. There is a part of the verse above that challenges us, but is critical for us to understand; “Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.” There is a lot we could talk about with that passage, but the key point is that we cannot experience the fruit of the Spirit until we die to our ways-the ways of the flesh. As someone said “We must go to our own funeral.” It may sound too good to be true that we can be patient when something happens that use to make us impatient; we can experience joy and peace in difficult times; we can love the unlovely; we can express kindness and goodness and faithfulness as a way of life; and we can have self-control in any situation. Even if it sounds too good to be true, it is true and it is a promise of God; a life lived by the Spirit is available to us.
Ephesians 3:20 “Now unto Him who is able to do exceedingly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us,”
Blessings,
Buddy
RSS Feed