Happy Tuesday!

It is Tuesday once again. By next Tuesday my six weeks grades are due and I have a test in my Congregational Leadership class. The review sheet is huge! Please pray for me to manage my time and accomplish both tasks. Also, I ask for prayer for Travis. He is a bit under the weather. Thank you, mighty and faithful prayer warriors.

Prayer: “Thank you, Jesus, for the empowering of the Holy Spirit. I want to honor You today by allowing Your Spirit to bear His fruit in me and direct me for the glory of Your name. Teach me afresh that I can be more like You. It is solely by Your wonderful working and not by my individual effort, power or might that I can be more like You. Amen”

Galatians 5: 22-25 “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.”

Okay, I get this passage. I have read this scripture and talked about it for a while, but now I finally get it. So here goes.

I love trees, but in truth I do not know one tree from another unless I see the fruit hanging from it. I know an apple tree or a peach tree for a pecan tree when I see the ripe fruit hanging from its limbs. Other than that one tree looks pretty much like another.

So, the spiritual fruit is the Holy Spirit. This spiritual fruit has nine parts. Only when the nine parts are present in our lives can others know that we are carriers of the Holy Spirit. Others will recognize the characteristics of this amazing piece of spiritual fruit. Some people have love, others have gentleness, some faithfulness and all the rest. When God’s seed was planted in all of us, each of the characteristics of the Holy Spirit were planted too, just as when a seed is planted it has all of the instincts and abilities to grow into the plant it was created to be. We were given all of the characteristics listed in Galatians and they will each develop in time. God nurtures us in His loving care. Through prayer, scripture study, worship and service each of these wonderful characteristics develop in each of us. As these develop we learn more about God and become more like Him.

As we allow the Holy Spirit to develop these godly characteristics in our lives then we not only talk the talk, but we walk the walk and we are known by the fruit we bear.

Take joy in the journey. Wear comfortable shoes. Count your blessings and say your prayers. Let us continue to pray for each other each day remembering that each of us is fighting some type of battle. Love you all, Bruce, Gaylene, Geni and Travis.

Gcapplenotes@aol.com

I am not moved by what I see. I am not moved by what I feel. I am moved only by what I believe and I believe God.