What Are You Bearing?
Sunday’s Monday
This has been a good week in as much as I have truly been blessed in most of what I accomplished. God set certain challenges before me and I handled each one quite well according to His standards. I am learning and growing in His nature as well as His will. We (Pat and I) had the super great honor of watching my youngest son (Charlie Loftin) walk the stage as he graduated from Catawba Valley Community College with a degree in Computer Science. We also celebrated a very nice Mother’s Day lunch with Pastor Joe Dillard and his wife Linda. God is truly good!
God has exposed me to a lot of different people this week and He slowed me down enough to observe their deminer. I went through three days of this before He answered my question as to why He wanted this done. It was and is a test, to see if I could tell the Jesus Follower’s from the not. The reply that I gave from my mind was God I can’t remember what I’ve seen. To which I felt His reply to be, “exactly”; my people have lost the power of my spirit. Their lives have become so mundane that no one notices me in anything they do!
I wanted to see what the world said the Fruit of the Holy Spirit is, so I turned to Wikipedia.org which read; The Fruit of the Holy Spirit is a biblical term that sums up nine attributes of a person or community living in accord with the Holy Spirit, according to chapter 5 of the Epistle to the Galatians: "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. The world considers these attributes to be merely a term suggested in the bible. Which leads to question, what do I believe? Just how much faith and hope do I have for the writing in Galatians?
The greatest test and purest proof can be obtained by delving into the writings of Matthew 5:16 (NLT), In the same way, let your good deeds shine out for all to see, so that everyone will praise your heavenly Father. Now I realize we’re not to be people pleasers in the sense of comprising our belief to fit in or make life easier, but we are to be as Christ like as possible when dealing with people, “period!” Which simply means that the Holy Spirit should always have the lead in our lives, but it’s especially important when dealing with others. Remember; We are to exhibit the attributes laid out in Galatians 5:22-23 (NLT), 22 But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!
I hope this writing brings special attention to the fact that God desires for us to get along, not get alone! The proof that I used for this determination is found throughout the New Testament in the form of one another commands. Do you know that the phrase "one another" is derived from the Greek word allelon which means "one another, each other; mutually, reciprocally." It occurs 100 times in the New Testament. Approximately 59 of those occurrences are specific commands teaching us how (and how not) to relate to one another. (Taken from Stop Calling Me Christian by Josh Nelson) Think about the fact of God desiring us to get along and then giving us the tools (fruits) to get it done! “Must really be important to God!” Here’s a little something to help if you have a computer, https://www.mmlearn.org/hubfs/docs/OneAnotherPassages.pdf ( it is to much to list in this short blog. Jesus tells us in John 16:33 (NLT), I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world.”
We can’t bear fruit alone just as we can’t one another without another. God’s heart is in His creation and He knows what He has created. He gave us free will to allow us to choose what fruit we produce as well as to equip us for His one another commands. Now I ask each of us to examine our fruit to see what we’re producing and if its quality is worthy of presenting it to our King! If not follow Acts 3:19 (NLT), Now repent of your sins and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped away.
I leave you with; Ephesians 1:17-19 (NLT), 17 asking God, the glorious Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, to give you spiritual wisdom and insight so that you might grow in your knowledge of God. 18 I pray that your hearts will be flooded with light so that you can understand the confident hope he has given to those he called—his holy people who are his rich and glorious inheritance. 19 I also pray that you will understand the incredible greatness of God’s power for us who believe him. This is the same mighty power, amen.
HAVE A BLESSED WEEK BY BEING A BLESSING TO OTHERS!
COMMENTS WELCOME…pal249@hotmail.com…05/12/2019