I will share about Christian books I have read or listened to.
I will be sharing about my life before and after Christ. I will include stories about my pet and other pets I have encountered.
Cultivate what matters
Imagine you have two seeds in your hand and you can only plant one. One seed grows easily, but it produces produces ugly, terrible tasting fruit. Cultivating the other seed takes time and consistent attention—but the fruit it produces is beautiful and delicious. Which seed would you choose to plant, water, and grow?
In Galatians 5, the apostle Paul talks about two types of fruit our lives can produce: fruit of the flesh and fruit of the Spirit. “The flesh” refers to our desires that pull us away from God’s Holy Spirit. Those desires produce hate, impatience, bitterness, selfishness, rudeness, chaos, anxiety, and self-indulgence—and God has no association with such things.
But when we commit our lives to Jesus, He gives us His Holy Spirit. The power of the Holy Spirit helps us “crucify” the desires of our flesh and put them to death. And when we crucify those desires, we create room for the Holy Spirit to produce fruit in us that leads to positive life change.
“The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.”
Galatians 5:22-23 NIV
Our flesh wants to get even, but the Spirit calls us to extend kindness. Our flesh wants to entertain sinful thoughts, but the Spirit calls us to walk in self-control. Our flesh wants to dictate our emotional response, but the Spirit calls us to walk in joy and peace.
The Fruit of the Spirit reveals that we are actively seeking God and rejecting disobedience.
So right now, reflect on your life. What fruit is it producing? Are you experiencing love, joy, peace, patience, and kindness—or are there pockets of bitterness, anger, jealousy, and self-indulgence in your life? What steps do you need to take to “crucify” beliefs and attitudes pulling you away from God?
Let the Holy Spirit show you what you need to remove, and then allow Him to transform your attitudes, actions, and desires.
His Pain, Our Gain
Isaiah 53 is a stunning chapter in the Bible—in what is now commonly referred to as the “Old Testament.”
Approximately 700 years before Jesus walked the earth, Isaiah prophesied about a suffering servant who would also, somehow and in some way, be exalted. A coming Savior, a future Redeemer, the long-awaited Messiah—whose death would ultimately bring life.
A portion of Isaiah 53 says this:
“But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.”
Isaiah 53:5 NIV
So, who was this man who would be pierced, crushed, and wounded because of someone else’s sins? Whose undeserved punishment would be the catalyst for healing? Whose life would be given as an offering—so that others might live?
Jesus Christ not only fits the description of the suffering servant who paid the ultimate price to buy His people back, redeem them, and set them free—He ...
“Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you. Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are motheaten. Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days. Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth. Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth, and been wanton; ye have nourished your hearts, as in a day of slaughter. Ye have condemned and killed the just; and he doth not resist you. Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain. Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh. Grudge...
