Galatians 5:22-23 [NLT]
But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!
Dear God, this is one of my favorite passages and also one of the few that I can pretty much quote chapter and verse. It’s something that I use to look at my own life and try to get some sort of perspective on how I’m doing. I also use it when I’m evaluating people who claim to be Christians. I try to see if their lives, words, and actions match up with these things. A lot of people can say the right words, but they simply can’t grow this fruit without you.
Then there are the verses that precede it. Galatians 5:19-21 gives us a look at the other side of the coin. The life lived completely away from you:
When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, the results are very clear: sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other sins like these. Let me tell you again, as I have before, that anyone living that sort of life will not inherit the Kingdom of God.
How am I doing when I hold those things up to the mirror my life reflects. Do I say that pornography is awful and yet engage in it? Do I preach patience and gentleness and yet exhibit hostility and jealousy? Do I claim to have peace, but live a life of dissension, division and envy?
Father, help me to allow the Spirit just a little more access to my being today so that you will continue to grow over and choke out the desires of my sinful nature. I am getting the image of St. Augustine grass. The stronger it gets the more it will choke out the weeds growing around it. The problem is, it needs A LOT of water to be that strong. Help me to do what I can to water the Spirit in my life so that it will choke out the weeds that I allow to still grow in me.
In Jesus’ name I pray,
Amen
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