This passage hit me with two things today, one being the Fruit of the Spirit line. All of the listed attributes are fruit of the Spirit. They are not things that we can force or fake. If you 'hot-house' the fruits of the Spirit they will appear fake as real hot-house fruit tastes fake. It will be missing something; a real earthiness that honest fruit has.
As we work towards closeness with God we will begin displaying more of these. When we see another brother displaying these attributes we should not get discouraged, down on ourselves, or jealous. We should rejoice in their faith and walk. We should be encouraged by the progress that our brother has made.
The other part that stuck out to me was the statement 'Against such things there is no law'. It seemed ridiculous until I thought about what it would look like if these fruits were outlawed. It has happened in the past and it will happen again in the future. When it does happen, that should be a warning to Christians and non-Christians alike that our leadership are rebelling against God and we, as God-fearing people, should withdraw our support lest His wrath fall upon us.
1 comment:
Good point about rejoicing in the spiritual growth of a brother. It can be tough, but why? Living for God's glory is not a competition. We don't need to be better than the next guy. We won't lose any of God's love if we don't measure up to "the competition." Too often I can see the Christian life as an individual race instead of a team sport. When a brother scores some new spiritual fruit, that's 2 points for the whole team!
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