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I was once told that in order to understand the rest of the Bible, you first had to accept these four English words – “in the beginning God”.

Was a day really 24 hours? Was the earth created with age? How long has the earth existed?

I have been asked all these questions in the past month. My answer – I don’t know. What do I know? In the beginning God. Period. That statement in Scripture is difficult enough for me to bend my  mind around.

Don’t get lost in arguments over matters not explained to us in God’s Word.

1. Accept your limitations. After all, what good is a God that we can figure out?

2. Take comfort in His presence. The same God in this verse is the One working in you today.

3. Don’t dwell too long on this one verse. If you spend your life debating a certain creationist viewpoint, you might miss opportunities to share the rest of the story.

Remember – this is only the beginning of the story. It gets better after this.

Why do we care about the fruit of the spirit so much that we teach it to children in the form of a song?

Why are we as Christians supposed to bear good fruit?

Galatians chapter 6 concludes with these thoughts from verse 7-9:

Don’t be deceived: God is not mocked. For whatever a man sows he will also reap, because the one who sows to his flesh will reap corruption from the flesh, but the one who sows to the Spirit will reap eternal life from the Spirit. So we must not get tired of doing good, for we will reap at the proper time if we don’t give up.

This tells us that whatever we sow, we will also reap. We are to bear good fruit and multiply.

God expects to see us bear fruit. Sounds easy, right? But as we’ve read through this short blog series on the fruit of the spirit, it’s evident that there are a lot of forces and desires working against us.

It’s difficult to bear good spiritual fruit. It’s tiresome. It’s downright impossible with our own strength. But the Gospel is on the line.

We are to live out the Gospel in words and in actions. As the quote goes, our lives might be the only Gospel a person sees. But our words are just as important. They have to work together for the glory of God and for the good of our souls.

Why should we push forward? As the passage said, we will reap what we sow. If we spend our time, money, efforts, and attention pursuing the passions of the world, we will receive corruption from the flesh. But, if we turn our attention away from ourselves and to our Maker, we will receive eternal life from the Spirit.

Drop the excuses. Drop the statements- I would be patient with him but you just don’t understand. Drop the – Why should I be kind to her when she’s constantly rude to me?

Here’s our one question: Are you going to live for the glory of God or for the praise of man? If you want to reap righteousness, you need to sow the proper seeds.

When getting my insurance license, I had to pass two tests on the same day. I told myself that failing the tests was not an option. Since I took failure off the table,  I had to study even when I didn’t feel like it. I had to pay close attention in class even when I was tired. I gave up lesser things like tv shows in order to reach the goal of passing my tests.

But I had a coworker who was studying at the same time. She told me she was nervous but would feel okay with herself if she only passed one half of the test. She, as a result, had not determined to conquer. And in the end, she failed one half and I passed both halves.

Our Christian walk is similar. We have a list of characteristics to focus on in order to guide us in difficult situations. We need to memorize the list of characteristics that we are supposed to follow. Otherwise, we strand ourselves by focusing on the bad behaviors.

One more example, this week I sent a text message that did not send. I decided it wasn’t important so I was going to delete it rather than resend it. I repeated over and over in my head, “do not resend, do not resend.” What button did I click? “Resend.” That word was stuck in my head. Instead, I should have been reminding myself of what I wanted to do rather than focus my energy on what not to do.

If we get lost in the list from the previous post, we will flounder because rather than striving for what we should do, we beat ourselves up over what we should not do.

Here’s the list of the Fruit of the Spirit from Galatians chapter five:

1.   Love – This should not be a surprise that love is first on the list. Our love for people comes from our love for God. We love people in order to show them God’s love.

2.   Joy – Believers are to rejoice in all circumstances, trusting that God is working all for His glory. This is not the same as happiness. I am happy with an icee but sad when it’s gone. However, I’m joyful when we get bad news because I know God is still in control.

3.   Peace – Christ brought ultimate peace through the cross because we are once and for all rescued from slavery to sin.

4.   Patience – Do not lose your cool no matter how people are responding to you. Here’s an important lesson to learn young: You are responsible for you. No one else.

5.   Kindness/goodness – God’s kindness  is shown when he provided salvation for us lowly sinners.

6.   Faithfulness – We are to be loyal and dependable. People should be able to  count on us to fulfill our responsibilities.

7.   Gentleness – This is especially important when we correct sin in others’ lives.

8.   Self-control – We need to be able to restrain ourselves unlike those dominated by fleshly desires. Another word for this is discipline.

 The Spirit produces fruit that the law cannot create. Don’t forget doing these good things doesn’t save you. It only helps us remember daily how to live for God rather than for people.

Read the next post in this series: http://wp.me/p2xHae-9J

In our youth group, Kevin has been emphasizing the importance of sowing and reaping. That is, if we practice (sow) laziness in our lives, we get the result (reaping) of failure or disappointment. For example, if we are lazy and don’t study for a test, we don’t pass. If we stop trying in school and keep failing tests, we don’t get to graduate to the next grade.

When I am diligent and care for my plants, they sprout flowers and vegetables. But when I go a weekend without watering them, they wilt and die.

In our walk with God, reaping spiritual fruit is not a magical event. They don’t just appear one day. They are a result of time spent in the Word, praying, and practicing what we believe.

But if we’re not diligent, if we decide to give in and live for the glory of ourselves, we reap bad fruit.

Galatians chapter 5 kicks off the discussion of spiritual fruit. Before we can look at the good fruit, we first take a look at the bad fruit.

16 I say then, walk by the Spirit and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh. 17 For the flesh desires what is against the Spirit, and the Spirit desires what is against the flesh; these are opposed to each other, so that you don’t do what you want. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.

19 Now the works of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, moral impurity,promiscuity, 20 idolatry, sorcery, hatreds, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambitions, dissensions, factions, 21 envy, drunkenness, carousing, and anything similar. I tell you about these things in advance—as I told you before—that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

Verse 16 tells us that if we want to conquer the flesh, we must continually yield to the Holy Spirit. Freedom from the flesh is not attainable by our own human strength. It is a result of constant obedience and dependence on the Holy Spirit. We’re told to “walk.” This means it’s a day-to-day activity. We are daily in a battle and we are not immune to the desires of the flesh.

Verse 19 starts a long list of “do not”s.

1.   Sexual immorality/moral impurity/promiscuity – There is not a sharp distinction between any of these terms. They all involve a lack of restraint. Some examples are pornography, sex before marriage, sex outside of marriage, and lust.

2.   Idolatry/sorcery – This focuses on refusing to worship the one true God. It’s a failure to praise God and thank Him for His goodness. It doesn’t mean you have a wooden statue you bow down to. Instead, you turn your trust away from God and to another source. There are several examples that are dangerous entry grounds in this category such as believing horoscopes, magic, an ouji boards.

3.   Hatreds/strife/jealousy/outbursts of anger/selfish ambitions/dissentions/factions/envy/ drunkenness/carousing/anything similar – These are all social sins that disrupt community life. They have the ability to divide people when instead we are to unite people with the Gospel. A couple of the main points in this category are outbursts of anger that leave people shaking in its path. Jealousy is  big one. It happens when you are not satisfied with the gifts that God has given you. You actually desire to have a gift that God has given someone else and you begin to hate what you can do. This list is not exclusive. It includes anything like wild parties.

This is a sobering list. Why does Paul mention these sins? Verse 21 tells us that “those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.” Take some time this weekend to seriously consider what aspects of your life you need to wage war against the flesh in. And join the blog next week as we rejoice over the Fruit of the Spirit that we can also reap.

Read the next post in this series:http://wp.me/p2xHae-9F

Now that we’ve spent time reflecting on our soil, we need to introduce the idea of fruit. Fruit implies work. We need to be certain that we don’t mess up our theology here. We do not have a works-based salvation (that is, we can never be “good enough” to be saved). Instead, we have a faith-based salvation.

Our faith and our works, though not interchangeable, work together for the glory of God. In chapter two of his book, James says that he will show you his faith from his works. This means that his belief in God is the motivating factor behind his actions.

But we will encounter people who believe that their works will save them. I once worked with a lady who did not call herself a Christian, even though she believed God existed. One day, I had the opportunity to ask her what she believed about God. Here’s what she told me.

“Renae, my God is a loving, compassionate God. He understands that I’m doing my very best and he gives me credit for my effort. My God would never tell people that they have to spend eternity in hell. That’s not fair.” I asked her if her God is just. She answered yes. I asked her, “Then how can He set a standard and yet not expect people to live up to it?” She had no answer. We kept talking a few minutes before I said, “I think I have a pretty good picture of your God – then what about Jesus? Who was He?” She got silent and looked me in the eyes. “I haven’t decided.” I responded, “Until you decide who Jesus is, the rest doesn’t matter.”

Before Paul discusses the Fruit of the Spirit in chapter five, he talks about “other Gospels” being spread in culture. The sad conversation with my coworker is one such example. Read Galatians 2:21:

I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died for nothing.

Just like my coworker, people are going to tell you that they are “good enough” to get to heaven. That God doesn’t care about the actions as long as the intent is good. FALSE. We can never work our way to heaven. God doesn’t love you because you do your chores without complaining or because you let your little brother play with you. God loves you. Period.

The law refers to the 10 Commandments – one of the best known lists of do’s and do not’s. God does not weigh our good against our bad. Christ died because our good deeds are like filthy rags to Him.

Why then do we have the law? Read on in Galations 3: 24-26:

The law, then, was our guardian until Christ, so that we could be justified by faith. But since that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian,  for you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.

The law is a guiding system, a constant reminder to check where our priorities are.

I bring this point up now so that you do not grossly misunderstand the purpose of the fruit of the spirit. We do not have these characteristics so that God will love us, let us into heaven, or pat us on the back. We live out the fruit of the spirit so that we can always focus our mind on honoring God and giving Him the glory.

Read the next post in this series: http://wp.me/p2xHae-9z