Category Archives: Fruit of the Spirit

God promises to make His people youthful. What that looks like.

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…so that your youth is renewed like the eagle (Psalm 103:5).

…they will be full of sap and very green (Psalm 92:14).

Eternal, lasting youth.  Sound good to you?

This is better than anything cosmetic surgery can offer.  This is a real makeover.

We are not talking about a second childhood or any such silly thing. We are talking about the Holy Spirit doing a new thing in an old vessel, the living God rejuvenating a veteran servant, the God of creation renewing His child and doing something fresh in him or her.  Making you youthful.

And no, the image of recapping an old tire does not fit here.  Or, plastering a toupee on a bald head.  Or padding a bra.  Or going in for cosmetic surgery.  None of these images fits what the living God wants to do, intends to do, has promised to do in the life of His elderly faithful.

He will make you JOYFUL.  Joy, in fact, is a big deal with God.  In the words of C. S. Lewis, joy is the business of Heaven.  Psalm 16:11 assures that “in Thy presence there is fullness of joy; at Thy right hand there are pleasures forevermore.”

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Never-ending: The struggle to remain humble

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Humble yourself. 

I know precious little about humility. However, I do know two important things about the subject:  a) Humility is a most attractive feature in high achievers and b) God requires it in all of His people.

Scripture is filled with teachings, examples, violations, commands, and encouragements regarding humility. Even our Lord Jesus Christ was humble and became our example. (Try these passages for starters: Matthew 11:29; John 13:14-15; Philippians 2:5-8.)

Scripture tells believers to put on humility (Colossians 3:12), to be clothed with humility (I Peter 5:5), and to walk with humility (Ephesians 4:1-2).

The Lord wants His children to be humble so much that He has given us seven aids to accomplish this and thereafter, to keep us that way.

1. Common sense.  Perspective. 

Look around at the billions of people. You’re just one of them. Look above at the zillions of stars. You’re sitting on one small planet circling one humble star. They’ve been around for eons, while you have only a few more years of life here. If that doesn’t humble you, you’re not paying attention.  (See Psalm 8)

2. The Holy Spirit. Power. 

The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, humility…. (Galatians 5:22-23).

3. Our family. Intimates. 

I heard the wife of a well-known preacher say on television once–and probably shocking her audience–“I tell my husband, ‘Don’t start that big shot thing with me. I saw you in your shorts this morning.’”  (My wife thought the woman spoke out of turn, that she should not have said that publicly.)

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Some people have forgotten they are forgiven. How weird is that!

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If you had nearly died from a strange illness and the doctors had given up hope, then suddenly you recovered and were able to get on with your life, could you ever ever forget that?

If you had suffered on death’s row at Angola Prison, and the prison chaplain was preparing a final prayer and the chef had laid out your last meal, when suddenly the governor pardoned you and you walked outside a free man, and then got on with your life, could you ever forget it?

Apparently some people can forget the most momentuous events in their lives.

Consider this line: For he who lacks these qualities is blind or short-sighted, having forgotten that he was forgiven from his past sins. (II Peter 1:9)

It appears that some calling themselves Christians no longer remember that they have been forgiven of their sins. How strange is that? And how does it happen?

I think we know.

The Apostle Peter saw professing Christians around him living as though they had no past, as though they had dropped full-grown into the Christian life out of heaven.

It was a bizarre thought to him, as it is to us.

Peter identifies qualities which make for fruitfulness and usefulness in a believer’s life: Applying all diligence, add to your faith moral excellence, and to your moral excellence knowledge, and to your knowledge, self-control…. perseverance….godliness….brotherly kindness….love. (II Peter 1:5-7)

Believers exhibiting such godly traits have great influence for the Lord in this world. However, some who call themselves believers show no evidence of moral excellence (virtue), have no knowledge, little or no self-control, a complete lack of perseverance, and so forth (vs. 8). That is, they are living in sin, are ignorant of God’s word, indulge every passion, cannot stay with anything they start, show no signs of Christlikeness or simple kindness or a love for other believers. And yet they call themselves Christians. How could this be?

Barren, unproductive, lifeless believers–could there be such a thing?–are either blind or short-sighted, and have clearly forgotten they were ever forgiven for their sins in the first place.

Truly amazing.

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How to tell when you’re growing in Christ. And when you’re not.

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But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  (2 Peter 3:18). 

Early coal miners carried canaries into the deep pits to alert them when they were in the presence of methane gas. Being more sensitive to these deadly fumes than humans, the bird would die long before the gas posed a problem for the miners. If the bird was dead, they ran for their lives.

We could all use a few canaries in our spiritual lives, to warn us when we were on dangerous ground as well as assure us when we were doing well.

I’ve been thinking a lot about Colossians 3:1-17.  Those who will study it deeply, read it often and think about it regularly will learn a great deal about themselves and what it means to live for Christ. Before long, they will see patterns emerging in this text.

One evidence of many that Scripture is God-breathed and Spirit-powered is the multi-layers it possesses and the multi-dimensions in which it functions. A child will read this passage and find it fits his life perfectly, while his grandfather will see something entirely different but every bit as beneficial.

This passage deserves our attention today.  Please take a moment to read it.  Thank you.

Signs of growth

Here are four harbingers–four canaries, or measurements, signs, indicators–that alert the child of God who is growing in Christ that he actually is growing in the Lord. At the end we’ll turn it around and see how the opposite of these serve as warnings.

Four things begin to be prominent in your life as you grow in Christ.

And, we should look for all four to hold true at the same time.

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The disciplined life: So rare, so valuable

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I’m confident you have heard the name Jimmy Doolittle.

Jimmy Doolittle flew those bi-planes in World War I for the United States, and then barn-stormed throughout the 1920’s, taking risks you would not believe. He led our country’s retaliatory bombing of Tokyo in early 1942, a few months after Pearl Harbor. He played a major role in the Allied victory over the Axis, eventually becoming a General. His autobiography is titled I Could Never Be So Lucky Again.

Doolittle and his wife Joe (that’s how they spelled her name) had two sons, Jim and John, both of whom served in the Second World War.

The general wrote about his younger son:

John was in his plebe year at West Point and the upperclassmen were harassing him no end…. While the value of demeaning first-year cadets is debatable, I was sure “Peanut” could survive whatever they dreamed up. (p. 284)

Later, General Doolittle analyzes his own strengths and weaknesses and makes a fascinating observation:

(I) have finally come to realize what a good thing the plebe year at West Point is. The principle is that a man must learn to accept discipline before he can dish it out. I have never been properly disciplined. Would have gotten along better with my superiors if I had. (p. 339)

“I have never been properly disciplined.” What an admission. It takes a mature person to say that.

To put it another way, he had never learned to say no to himself. That is the essence of self-discipline.

He was not exaggerating. Doolittle was a man with a thousand strengths, but his few weaknesses kept creeping up and blindsiding him. Numerous times, even after he became a national hero, the officers in charge of his current assignment would ground him because of crazy stunts like buzzing airfields upside down and flying under bridges and endangering his passengers.

Prior to the Allied invasion of Normandy (June 6, 1944), the actual place and time were the biggest secrets on the planet. Everyone was sworn to silence. Doolittle tells of a general who shot his mouth off in a bar, talking freely about the invasion, speculating on when and where, even though he personally had not been briefed.

General Eisenhower had no patience with such foolishness.

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The abrasive Christian

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“The Lord’s bond-servant must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged, with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance, leading to the knowledge of the truth…” (Second Timothy 2:24-25)

In Lynne Olson’s book Those Angry Days: Roosevelt, Lindbergh, and America’s Fight Over World War II, 1939-1941, she has this interesting depiction of Harold Ickes, a member of FDR’s cabinet during the Second World War:

“According to T. H. Watkins, Ickes’ biographer, ‘a world without something in it to make him angry would have been incomprehensible to him.’ A disgrunted Republican senator who had been the target of one of Ickes’ verbal assaults called him ‘a common scold puffed up by high office.’ To one cabinet colleague, Ickes was ‘Washington’s tough guy.’ To another, he was the ‘president’s attack dog.’”

Olsen tells how an assistant secretary of state once refused to shake hands with Mr. Ickes and described him in his diary as “fundamentally, a louse.”

Having such an irritating person in high government office is one thing; having them in church leadership is quite another.

I’m remembering a woman had a reputation for being a strong witness for the Lord, even to the point of teaching classes on faith-sharing.

One day I called her office following up on something her boss had told me.

I was amazed by her reaction.

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The humble pastor brags on himself

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I’m a pastor. I know the trade secrets.

I hope none of the brethren get upset by my letting the rest of the world in on our little quirks here.

When we want the audience to know of our (ahem) advanced degrees and superior education, we tell stories.  They sound a lot like this…

….When I was working on my doctor’s degree–I mean the first one, not the second one–I was having a hard time with my dissertation…. (The fact is, he got that degree from a mail-order institution for reading three books and writing two short papers.)

–The other day I met a man at the grocery store.  He said to me, “Aren’t you DOCTOR Rogers?”  I said, “Yes, I am.”  And he said, “Well, Doctor Rogers….” (and the story goes on from there.  Throughout the story, that fellow calls him Doctor no fewer than a dozen times.  This is to alert the audience to the way he wishes to be addressed.)

When we want the audience to know what celebrated circles we run in, we drop names into the sermons….

–“As I was saying to Billy Graham recently, ‘I hate name-droppers, don’t you?”

–“The last time I attended the presidential prayer breakfast in Washington, this time I was seated beside a lowly congressman.  A far cry from the time they seated me beside the Secretary of State.  Anyway, he said to me….”

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Some people sound heavenly; others sound like hell.

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“In thy presence there is fullness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures forevermore” (Psalm 16:11).

“Cast out the worthless slave into the outer darkness; in that place there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 25:30).

If the atmosphere of heaven is joy and praise, then the noxious fumes of hell must be composed of equal parts anger, complaining, bitterness and blaming.

If your heart is in heaven, your head should be in the clouds.

Okay, I’m playing with metaphors here and admit it. But I am overwhelmed by all the scriptures which keep telling us that the atmosphere around the throne of Heaven is praise and joy and gratitude. Worship, in other words.

There is Psalm 16:11 (above) which is just about as good as you could ask for.

In John’s vision of Heaven which we call Revelation (or more often “Revelations”), he tells us that near the throne stood “four living creatures, each having six wings…. Day and night they do not cease to say, ‘Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God, The Almighty, who was and who is and who is to come’” (Revelation 4:8).  Around the throne, the praise is continuous.

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Lord, make me a silken Christian.

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“The silk we love for its softness and beauty is also one of the strongest and toughest fibers in the world. It has a strength of around five grams per denier compared with three grams per denier for a drawn wire of soft steel.” (From “The History of Silk,” by Harold Verner, quoted by Liz Trenow in her novel “The Last Telegram.”)

Soft and beautiful; strong and tough. What a combination.

Some in our day call this “a velvet-brick” or “a steel magnolia.” Soft and beautiful on the outside, strong and tough on the inside.

A pretty apt description of our Lord Jesus Christ, isn’t it?  We see His softness and beauty in a hundred things He did: the time He took to receive the little children and bless them, respond to the cries of the leper who had touched him, restore a dead son to his grieving mother, forgive an adulterous woman who had been publicly humiliated by religious bullies, and save a five-times married woman of Samaria.  He invited the dying thief on the cross to spend eternity with Him in Paradise, and prayed for His executioners.

Our Lord said, Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light (Matthew 11:28-30).

No wonder people have been so enamored by this Lord Jesus Christ from day one.

He was a beautiful man.

But the Lord’s strength and toughness are also visible–on full display, even–throughout the Gospels. 

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10 ways to know you rule your own spirit

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“He who is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he who rules his spirit than he who takes a city” (Proverbs 16:32).  And on the other hand, “Whoever has no rule over his own spirit is like a city broken down, without walls” (Proverbs 25:28). 

Self-control is a mighty good thing to have.  And as rare as Spanish doubloons in the Sunday offering plate.

“The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faithfulness, humility, and self-control” (Galatians 5:22-23).  So, the much-desired quality of self-control is found among the nine traits making up the “fruit of the Spirit,” which is also a pretty solid description of Christlikeness.

The ability to master one’s own spirit is not as recognizable as its opposite, the failure or inability to control one’s inner self.  That trait–a spirit out of control–is quickly on full display whenever its owner is offended, attacked, questioned, called to account for something he/she has done, or otherwise challenged. The uncontrolled spirit has no defenses against temptation, no muscles for hard tasks, and no patience with difficult people.  “Love one’s enemies”? (Luke 6:27) The uncontrolled spirit has difficulty loving its own friends and thus nothing in reserve for its opponents.

The angry motorist determined to set another driver straight cannot control his own spirit.  The disgruntled employee who returns with a gun to settle accounts cannot control his own spirit.  The gossip who simply cannot resist the urge to pass along the juicy morsel about someone cannot control their spirit.

The list is endless.  And so depressing.

So, let’s take the positive approach! Here, straight out of the wonderful book of Proverbs, are ten traits of the person in control of his/her own spirit.

One.  You can take chastening from the Lord and appreciate discipline when you have it coming.

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