The Spirit’s Fruit: Gentleness
What is it to be gentle? Everyone has an image in their mind’s eye or an idea. But it’s probably best to start with the One we ought to model and so ask, what did gentle look like on Jesus?…
Tag fruitfulness
The Spirit’s Fruit: Goodness
Just as the root of Christian living is the work of God’s Spirit in our hearts, goodness is the chief attribute of the Spirit’s blessing in our relationships. Along with patience and kindness, goodness is a social grace, a virtue…
The Spirit’s Fruit: Kindness
A vivid lesson on kindness found throughout Old Testament scripture is how frequently kindness is expected as a matter of reciprocity. Abimelech expected kindness from Abraham in return for having shown kindness to Abraham: “God is with you in all…
The Spirit’s Fruit: Faithfulness
Any discussion on the fruit of the Spirit as laid out in Galatians 5 must begin with the simple fact that the list gives fruits of the Spirit, not fruits of human effort and achievement. Thus any discussion on faithfulness…
The Spirit’s Fruit: Patience
There was once an ancient man who so pursued the Lord, seeking always to glorify God no matter what came his way, no matter how crooked his lot, that even God himself could proclaim of him that “He still holds fast…
The Spirit’s Fruit: Peace
The aspiration for peace has loomed large in the popular consciousness against the backdrop of continual wars, conflict, and social upheaval. It is the dream of every pageant contestant. And it has its own iconography: the v hand signal and…
The Sower, the Seed, and the World
In Matthew 12, Jesus and the disciples experienced events that had to be bitterly disappointing. Jesus healed a demon-possessed man who was blind and mute and the Pharisees said “It is only by Beelzebul, the prince of demons, that this…
Promise: God is Slow to Anger
Oh, the goodness of God’s anger! That God, in his divine simplicity, has anger and is immutably angry, presupposes that God has goodness and is good. Christopher Ash and Steve Midgley state the doctrine well, “If God were not angry…
The Secret of Contentment
One of the most difficult things for people to do is to cease striving and rest. Yet striving after the things the human heart craves, like significance, security, and success, has not brought people contentment. Instead, people are frustrated, hate…
By His Spirit
Think of the one area in your life right now in which it seems that it will take everything you have to make it through. Maybe it’s a class in graduate school or seminary. Perhaps it’s a season of struggle…