Thursday, April 15, 2010

Recently I spoke on the fruit of the spirit in a message called Vice Versus Virtue. It's the season in my life that God is speaking to soI figured it was worth sharing on my blog (the blog I have so much trouble keeping up with...). In Galatians 5:16-18 Paul says this, "My counsel is this: Live freely, animated and motivated by God’s Spirit. Then you won’t feed the compulsions of selfishness. For there is a root of sinful self-interest in us that is at odds with a free spirit, just as the free spirit is incompatible with selfishness. These two ways of life are antithetical, so that you cannot live at times one way and at times another way according to how you feel on any given day. Why don’t you choose to be led by the Spirit and so escape the erratic compulsions of a law-dominated existence?" I desperately want to be led by the spirit in my own life. But what I realize is that in the last year I have had a terrible battle of my vices (immoral and negative conduct) versus my virtues (admirable, moral and righteous qualities). I have been going through a season that I have just been living out exactly how I feel right at that moment. I feel mad…so I act it. I feel like venting so I do. I feel like being lazy and procrastinating so I put things off. I feel like…I feel like…I feel like.... So I do. It’s like I am just barely going through the motions of daily living and hanging on for dear life and not liking the things coming out of me along the way.

I'm not even talking about big huge noticeable things. I am just talk about those negative attitudes wecan get that then come out in all sort of symptoms. During the conference I shared the picture God gave me that illustrated this point so perfectly. Let me attempt to give you the visual too...

Picture a perfume bottle and every time you push the button out comes a nice spritz of fragrance. The type of spritz that draws others in. It is refreshing, energizing and edifying. That's what God wants us to look like. He wants us to be a refreshing and energizing spritz to those around us. Unfortunately that isn't what I always look like. What happens to me when my buttons get pushed looks more like silly spray. You push the button and out comes this nasty spew of silly spray. It goes everywhere and sticks to everything. It's heavy, sticky and burdensome. It is such a mess to clean up. Get the picture???

So what about you? Are you a freshening spritz? Or a sticky spew? I have determined in my heart to be a spritz. I want to honor God in all I do. I don't want to just continue to spew out everything I feel right at the time. God wants us to have fruit coming out in our lives. John 15:8 says, "This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples." I want things like love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control spritzing out of me. I assume you do to. I will pray for you and you can pray for me that God would help us to choose to walk with the spirit everyday. And if I can discipline myself enough to keep up with my blog...maybe you and I can walk each week through everyone of these fruit and see in more detail what they should look like.

Well I'm off to spritz some fruit!

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