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, 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.
Isaiah 41
English Standard Version
Fear Not, for I Am with You
41 Listen to me in silence, O coastlands;
let the peoples renew their strength;
let them approach, then let them speak;
let us together draw near for judgment.
2 Who stirred up one from the east
whom victory meets at every step?[a]
He gives up nations before him,
so that he tramples kings underfoot;
he makes them like dust with his sword,
like driven stubble with his bow.
3 He pursues them and passes on safely,
by paths his feet have not trod.
4 Who has performed and done this,
calling the generations from the beginning?
I, the Lord, the first,
and with the last; I am he.
5 The coastlands have seen and are afraid;
the ends of the earth tremble;
they have drawn near and come.
6 Everyone helps his neighbor
and says to his brother, “Be strong!”
7 The craftsman strengthens the goldsmith,
and he who smooths with the hammer him who strikes the anvil,
saying of the soldering, “It is good”;
and they strengthen it with nails so that it cannot be moved.
8 But you, Israel, my ...
