What a service on Sunday! My family and I were overwhelmed (in a good way) with all of the well-wishes and blessings from everyone. It truly was a celebration of God's goodness, grace and faithfulness. I was especially encouraged by Dave Greiser's sermon on "Leading with Guts". The one thing that struck me was the importance of leaders to produce the fruit of the Spirit.
Here is what the Bible says in Galatians 5:22 - 23, "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law." This caused me to pause and reflect.
This is a hard list. The ones that really stand out are that I know I am not always loving - and certainly not always patient. I am not saying that I have the other ones down perfectly either but it made me realize that the ONLY possible way to produce this type of character is by yielding to the Holy Spirit. It's God's Spirit that does the work of making us loving, joyful, peaceful, patient, kind, good, faithful, gentle and self-controlled. And all of these together look like Jesus Christ.
This list is not just for pastors. It is for every person who has surrendered his or her life to God. All followers are expected to bear this kind of fruit. We certainly have a great opportunity to exemplify these things during this Christmas season, but we can only do it by allowing the Spirit to lead us.
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