The Fruit of the Spirit

Readings:
Psalm 22
Galatians 5:13-26

Focus:
Galatians 5:22-23a: "But the harvest of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, fidelity, gentleness, and self-control."

When we go through life just letting ourselves live without paying attention to what God might want, we end up making a lot of mistakes and living pretty selfishly. We get irritable, we do things that benefit ourselves instead of benefitting other people, we are thoughtless, and so on.

But when we ask God to direct our days, the Holy Spirit guides what we say and do. And that is when the qualities listed above start to show up in our lives.

I know that I am not very good at many of those things on my own. I am glad that I can have the fruit of the Holy Spirit in my life because of God, since I can't do it myself!

Expert in Goodness

Readings:
Job 2
Romans 16:17-27

Focus:
Romans 16:19b: "I want you to be expert in goodness, but innocent of evil."

We are to be expert in goodness. In order to be this way, though, we need to know what goodness is. We can't just be naively nice, thinking we sort of instinctively know what it means to be good. No, Paul says we should be expert in goodness. That means that we need to understand it completely. We must read and study the Bible, so that we will know what goodness is.

As Paul says earlier in verse 17, we must avoid those who lead people astray, contrary to the teachings we have received. In order to recognize this, we must know the teachings we have received. We must be expert in them. That is the only way to be truly good.

Slaves of Some Master

Readings:
Ezra 8
Romans 6:15-19

Focus:
Romans 6:16: "You know well enough that if you bind yourselves to obey a master, you are slaves of the master you obey; and this is true whether the master is sin and the outcome death, or obedience and the outcome righteousness."

Everyone serves some master, whether they realize it or not. Everyone is a slave to something. Until we give our lives to God, we are slaves to sin.

Maybe we never commit any outrageous sins such as embezzling or cheating or stealing. Nevertheless we are still slaves to sin; we are unkind or selfish or thoughtless. But once we give our lives to God, we are freed from that slavery. Then we get a new master, and that master is goodness.

What a difference! We may still sin, but we will no longer be lost in sin; we will be able to pick ourselves up with God's forgiveness and try again. Goodness is a much better master than sin.