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.
A Gift Worth Receiving
After Jesus healed a man who had been paralyzed for almost four decades, the religious Jews were angry with Him. This may seem strange, because healing is a good thing, but Jesus performed this miracle on the Sabbath—the day of rest. In the Old Testament, God gave believers a long list of rules to follow in order to stay right with Him, and these rules included honoring the Sabbath.
But in the New Testament, Jesus was sent to change our relationship with the Father. By sacrificing Himself on the cross, He gave us access to a relationship with God—so that long list of rules was no longer needed. Throughout Jesus' life, He shows people the nature of this new relationship. But because it didn’t line up with what the religious establishment believed, they were angry with Him.
In John 5, Jesus justifies these changes through revealing His true authority. By calling God His Father, He shared that He was equal to God. This angered the religious Jews, but it gives us a ...
