Hi Friends. May God bless and keep you. May His face always smile upon you. May He be gracious to you and give you peace. I love this prayer and so, I pray it over each of you this month. It is my paraphrase from the book of Numbers, chapter 6, verses 24-26. It is the prayer that the priests of Israel were to pray over their people. It is also one of those complete prayers found in God’s Word which explains what God desires for His children. This little prayer speaks about God’s provision and protection as we ask God to bless and keep us. It speaks about His constant presence with the believer as we ask for Him to smile upon us. It also speaks about His pardon and peace to those who have used their Faith to believe in Him as we ask for His graciousness and His peace in all things. Provision, protection, presence, pardon, and peace. These are all a part of the abundant Life God desires for us and this little prayer asks for it all in a very simple and lovely way. It is my gift to each of you today and everyday, but may I add another part to this great prayer? May you be aware of the many ways through which God answers this prayer in your life. Amen.
Aware. I know this is a review of what I said last month but, I believe it is an important point. As I said in our last conversation, I believe the difference between living the abundant Life or not is simply in being aware that God is present. He is definitely present when all is good with our world for He is the Source of every good and perfect thing (Jas 1:17), but He is equally present when all hell is breaking loose in our lives. God is Omnipresence, which means He is fully present to everyone and fully in all places, all at the same time. This may well be one of those “I-believe-by-faith” things because it is very difficult for our limited human brain to wrap itself around such a high concept. Although at times we may want to be in two places at the same time throughout our life, of course we cannot; but God can and actually is present in infinitely multiple places all at once. He is always with each of us, whether we feel it or not. When we live a life aware that He is present, even when nothing about our exterior changes, everything about our interior does change. If we feel lonely, we remember we are never alone and those false feelings begin to leave us. If we feel sad, we recall His unconditional love displayed on the Cross and can rejoice instead. If we are angry at some injustice, we can easily speak to Him about ways we can improve the situation and something negative transforms into something positive. Likewise, if we are feeling happy, we can quickly share our joy with Him and, so, multiply that joy- if at peace, we can lovingly praise Him and increase our peace until it overflows to others…. The point is, when we live a life aware of His real (not in theory but actual) presence in our lives, then we are equipped with everything we need to live that abundant Life He so wants for us…and, I hope, that we want for ourselves.
When we choose to use our Faith to believe that God loves us and is ever present in our lives, we begin to display that Faith in our life. Again, God should not be a lovely theory, but rather, a reality in the true believer’s life. If we have exercised our Faith then we have opened up a door to experience the abundant Life and the more you experience it, the more you will open that door to experience it more. The more real God becomes to us, the more we experience His blessings and the more we will want to experience them for ourselves as well as wanting others to experience Him too. How do we accomplish this grand feat of getting others to “taste and see” Jesus for themselves? By shoving Jesus down every person’s throat? No, that only causes resistance and no one wins- I had to learn that sad lesson the hard way several years ago, so please learn from me, it doesn’t work. God is all about freedom so we must allow others to choose whether they want Him in their lives or not. Of course this makes me very sad because most people don’t want Him or at least not so much that He “interferes” with “their” lives. But the Christian life is one of perseverance so we must keep looking for an open door through which we may enter. (Rev 3:20-22) I must admit, lately, I have not found many… but I keep knocking with hope that someone will desire what I have already found.
In the meantime, what else can we do to bring the Light into the dark world? We can live a life of Faith, more and more consistently acting the way Jesus would act. So what does a life lived that way look like? What are the everyday practical results of living a life that consistently acts on Faith rather than self? It is the life of someone who displays love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. (Gal 5:22-23) You see, when we receive Jesus into our heart, the Holy Spirit joins our spirit and begins to mature that newly born, infantile spirit. Just like when a baby is born and must learn step by step how to live a fulfilling life, so too our baby spirits must mature and learn to live the abundant Life God has planned for us. The more time we spend with the Teacher, the more we learn. The more we learn, the more God will allow us into situations in which we have the opportunity to show what we have learned. This is called testing. And testing is a good thing. How do you know how patient you are unless you find yourself in a situation where you have to be patient? Testing is a good thing, but please, do not confuse it with tempting. There is nothing good about temptations and, so, God never tempts anyone. (Jas 1:13)
Testing and tempting. On the surface these two things may seem like one and the same, but they are as far from the same as the east is from the west. God uses the challenges, troubles, and trails of life to test us, while the devil uses the same events to tempt us. So what’s the difference, really? In testing us, God desires for us to be victorious; He knows that, with Him, we can conquer whatever comes our way. You see, as any good teacher would do, the Holy Spirit makes sure we have “studied” enough to be able to make the right choices to pass the current test. God never allows us to go through anything unless He is sure we are prepared to do so. God will never bring you to anything that He cannot bring you through. Testing is for our benefit, for unless we are tested, we will never truly know who we are and what we are capable of accomplishing. I know all of this sounds good in theory, but I promise you, it works out even better in reality. When you first go through one small thing that you thought, “There is no way on earth I can handle this,” but then with God you do…I can’t even begin to explain how it strengthens you and enhances your life in such a way that you want to, then, help others who are going through their own tests. See, God knows that we will feel so energized by our own successes that we will reach out to help others. That’s the way the world is supposed to work after all, isn’t it? Those who have help those who have-not; those who can help those who cannot. That is what God originally had planned for us, you know. One world, one people, all unified under God’s loving guidance and wisdom. Testing brings this about in us, if we pass the test…
Temptation. That’s a different story all together. While it may seem like the actual events are the same, the final intent is completely opposite. The devil tempts us with the desire that we fail miserably. He would like nothing more than to see us fall even further into our fallen selfish nature. He convinces himself that we will react to situations the same way he would, with evil results. He thinks we cannot handle anything and so waits for the right time to beat us down. He is a coward and will never face us if there is any remote chance that we will succeed. He waits until we are already thinking negative thoughts and reinforces them. He sits and anticipates that our emotions will be self-absorbed like his are and gives us every false excuse to confirm that we are justified in them. He pays attention to any self-centered desire and heartily encourages them. And finally, he works with our corrupted soul to cause us to react in wrong ways. When we follow his lead, failure is inevitable. Nothing positive comes from being negative…if we allow ourselves to be tempted, we are allowing something negative into our lives and, so, nothing positive will come out of it. The devil wants us to fail and expects it from us because that is all he knows. We actually confuse and frustrate him when we respond differently than he would. Satan and his cohorts only know evil and so they do their worst to get us to react in evil ways.
So did you see the major difference between testing and tempting? God tests us so that we will be successful and, then, help others- the devil tempts us so that we will fail and fall back into our fallen selfish nature. Testing brings us out of ourselves- temptation hopes to keep us in our little self-centered boxes. Testing increases all that is good within us- tempting is meant to bring out the worst in us. God tests us for our own good- the devil tempts us for his enjoyment. God delights in watching His children overcome a difficult situation- the devil revels at watching God’s children be overwhelmed by hard circumstances. God loves it when we have become victorious in any part of our lives and then lend a helping hand to someone else who might be feeling burdened too. The devil is thrilled when we allow our situation to rule over us and then do not even think about helping someone else we know could use our help. I think you get the point. Testing is a good thing- temptation is far from it.
While it is clear to see that the intent of testing/tempting is completely different, I am a practical person and so I want to know how to be tested instead of tempted. Again, while the event used to test/tempt many times looks exactly the same on the outside, our success or failure is based on one thing alone: who is with us on the inside during the event. If we have never received God or we are currently pushing Him away, then we have only ourselves to rely on- as I have said before, we are corrupt, limited, and temporary so if all we’ve got is ourselves, you can bet our resolve will also be corrupt, limited, and temporary. Can you guess who else is corrupt, limited, and temporary? If we only have ourselves to count on, we can only go so far and then, we crash and, sadly, you can bet that the devil is not too far away as he encourages us to spiral downward. If we only have our own strength, the devil sits waiting for the moment when he can set in for the kill. The test becomes a temptation because we do not have any higher source of strength to lean on and, more often than not, we eventually fail. (Jas 1: 14-15)
Again, if God is not with you, you can bet that the devil is not so far away. He is an opportunist who knows that our own strength does not last, so he sits and waits until our backs are so burdened, and then, he adds the final straw and laughs as we fall from the weight of it all. Being the complete opposite of God, the devil wants nothing more than for us to fail miserably especially if we have openly made claims that we are a Christian. You see, before we confess our beliefs publicly, he does not bother with us too much; after all, we cannot do any real damage to his kingdom so why expend much effort on the non-believer? No, he’s got them under his control because it does not take much to cause them to fall and, so, he does not need to do much to keep them “in line.” He doesn’t worry about the non-believer because most of them only think of their own lives anyway; if they start to show any signs of “caring,” the devil is quick to squelch any of that “nonsense” and, most non-believers fall right into his plan. “You can’t get involved,” he says. “It’s none of your business,” he convinces them. And they agree and move on with their own self-centered lives never bringing any real harm to his kingdom of pride, apathy, and selfishness. No, he doesn’t bother too much with the non-believer but, every now and again a non-believer will see the Light and choose to lay down their lives for Him, and then, the devil is forced to fight back. You see, he already lost that non-believer to the believing side so he will be damned if he loses anyone else because of that conversion. Actually, he is damned either way but, strangely enough, he still thinks he has a chance to win this futile battle with God and so, fight he does. It is after we have confessed our confidence in our Creator and Savior that we have a big target on our back. But do not fear, my Friends, the One Who is in us is millions of times stronger than the devil falsely thinks himself to be. (1Jn 4: 4)
The devil thinks he has more power than he really does because he refuses to believe that God is Sovereign and in total control over everyone and everything including the devil. But delusional as he is, make no mistake about it, the devil does put a bulls eye on every Christian. He knows better than we do sometimes that others are watching us to see how we will respond to the situations we face and he wants us to show them that we are the same as everyone else. He wants us to show the lost world that we react the same way they would, that we are no different then the rest. That indeed we are actually worse than them because we are hypocrites who say one thing then react the opposite way. He wants to destroy our witness so that no one else will come to God because of us. If those who do not have Christ in their lives see us acting the same way they would, they will naturally wonder what the big deal is with “this Christ guy anyway.” Indeed we baby Christians are often called hypocrites by those who do not understand we are growing and learning creatures who sometimes don’t get it right but, as with anyone that is still growing, sometimes we do not. For this reason I am the first to warn everyone around me that, if you are looking for perfection please, PLEASE do not look at me. Look instead to the One Who I am pointing toward. If I am in Christ, I will do well but, if I am not, I probably will not do well. I am a growing creature, maturing in my spirit. The problem is that we Christians grow out in the open and that can be a very messy thing indeed but, as always, the good news is that we are not alone. God is with us, our great Emmanuel will help us every step of the way when we turn to Him and simply ask. (Mt 7:7) The difference between a sinner and a saint is who lives within us- on the outside, we may still need some major adjustments, but on the inside, we are pure white because of God’s love, Jesus’ sacrifice, and the Holy Spirit’s constant and patient guidance. I often say that I would rather be a saint who sometimes does evil things than a sinner who sometimes does good things.
As I said above, nothing positive comes from being negative…but praise God the opposite is also true! Nothing negative comes from being positive. If God is with us, then we have the eternal arsenal of weaponry to use at our discretion. What is that arsenal? I mentioned it before. It is all we will ever need to conquer every battle we find ourselves in and pass every test we will ever be presented. It is the Fruit of the Spirit. (Gal 5: 22-23) What? Did you not realize that the precious Fruit is the ultimate weapon? A seed of the Fruit is what the Holy Spirit brings into our spirit when He comes to reside in us. It is what God is growing and maturing in us throughout our Christian lives. It is the Source of our eternal life for only True Love, God’s Love, can bring life to anyone. It is the Source of our unexplainable joy and unshakable peace. It is the reason why we can be patient, kind, and good to others when they do not merit any such thing. It is the only way we can be faithful to God, others, and ourselves. It brings out a gentle meekness in us that says we are not better than anyone else but, equally, we are not less. Without the Fruit, we cannot even hope to control ourselves for too long. Again, on our own, we are corrupt, limited, and temporary. But in the Spirit, using the precious Fruit He freely and gladly gives us, we become pure-hearted, the sky becomes our only limit, and our actions become positive bringing eternal change and rewards for all involved. My Friends, it is only in the Spirit with His Fruit that we can have this abundant Life and have it more and more.
It is only as we decide to turn to God and allow Him to change our minds, bring our emotions into alignment with His own, and transform our desires to match His Will, that we display the abundant Life and the fact that we are walking by Faith instead of by sight. I love the way St. Paul puts it in Galatians 3: 1-3. Here’s my paraphrase of these great verses: “You foolish Christians! What makes you think that you can do anything on your own? Was it not by Faith that you believed in Jesus and received the Holy Spirit and eternal Life? God did all the work, all you did was believe, so now what? Do you think you can live the abundant Life apart from Him? If you received the abundant Life with Him, it is only with Him that you can mature and live it out.” You see, it is the Fruit that God has freely given us as believers that is the Source of everything good in our lives from here on out. If we turn away from God through Whom the Fruit comes to us, we have little to no access to the Fruit. The abundant Life is about consistently acting on Faith and, then, displaying the Fruit of the Spirit; for this we must be connected to the One Who gives us the Fruit. The Fruit is in our spirit the moment we give our lives to God but, if we are not connected to Him, we have limited ability to use the Fruit. It is not that God takes the Fruit away from us (Ro 11: 29), but that our strength to use it begins to wither without His Life-giving energy. God is the One Who makes the Fruit actually work in and through us. Apart from Him, we can do nothing. (Jn 15: 1-8)
So how do we connect and stay connected? In prayer, by reading the Bible, when we listen to preachers, as we talk about godly things instead of silly worldly things, in sharing our faith with one another, by doing what we know is the right things to do…. We are what we eat, my Friends. I have said that many times and will continue to because it is a good reminder to myself! If I take in only or mostly things of this world, then that is where my mind will be- if I take in godly things, then that is where my mind will be. We can either occupy our minds with this passing world or invest them in our eternal God. It is only when we decide to invest our lives in God that we are connected with Him. When we are connected to God, we have the Fruit at our disposal and we can respond to anyone and any situation the right way. Remember, if you have confessed your belief in Jesus, you can bet others are watching to see what that means. Since they cannot see our hearts, we must show them in our actions. (Mt 5:16) But we must realize that our actions stem from our soul- what you think about, how you manage your emotions, and what you really want from life will eventually show up in your actions, and the unbelieving world is watching.
Remember, we live in a world where people need to “see,” for they do not readily and simply believe. You know the saying: Seeing is believing. But this is not the way we believers are to live. Faith is believing. We see after we believe. And if what we see does not correspond to what we were believing in, then we turn to God and believe further still. Do you not know that many of the Saints of the Bible, Old and New Testament alike, never physically saw what they were believing for? This is true Faith, mature Faith: to believe still when you never see what you have been waiting for. We growing Christians barely understand this type of deep Faith, so how much more does this dark world think it is all foolishness. (1Co 1:18) So we must learn to respond to them and the testing times in our lives in a godly way so that they can “see” and, hopefully, desire to live this abundant Life for themselves.
Allow me to review an old topic: responding versus reacting. When we respond to any person or situation, we stop and seek the Lord’s help and, then, use the Fruit of the Spirit to proceed. Even before I knew the Lord, I used to teach my children that this was called “stop, breath, and think,” but now I understand that we are to “think” with God and not on our own. On the other hand, when we react, we impulsively act out of our own corrupt, limited, temporary resources. Again, relying on our own corrupt, limited, and temporary strengths doesn’t get us too far, but using the Fruit instead will cause our actions to display a pure, unlimited, and permanent strength that is beyond ourselves. This is when the lost world is supposed to notice that we Christians are different than the rest. Not better, mind you, for we are all imperfect, but we should definitely be different. Something about the way we live should attract others who do not yet know Jesus for themselves. Let me give you a quick example to make sure we get this concept, okay? Someone approaches you and begins to yell at you, accusing you of all sorts of things you know you did not do. Reacting would look like this: you yell back, even louder, calling the person a liar and the argument escalates, and fists are drawn, and chaos ensues and…and you end up with a disaster on your hands. Responding, on the other hand, would look something like this: you gently speak to the person to more fully understand what they are saying- you try to patiently assure them, being lovingly concerned more about their feelings then justifying yourself- the argument becomes a peaceful discussion about how to solve the issue at hand and you both depart joyfully confident that all is well. When we react, chaos and disaster are the expected results- when we respond instead, we can equally expect only good things will result.
Okay, I know what you’re thinking, “Yeah right, nothing works that smoothly! There is no way that person is going to change and he will only give me grief no matter what I do!” But I am here to tell you from experience that, if you do respond instead of react, you will be greatly surprised that a majority of the time, a dangerous storm can really be quickly calmed. Let me give you a real life example. A man walked into a pharmacy I was filling in at one day; it was easy to see from his body language that he was not a happy camper. As the veins bulged out of his neck, he looked me straight in the eye and laid out his offensive. It seems that for the last several days he had attempted to get “you pharmacists” to fix a problem with one of his prescriptions. He had called many times and had been given the run around each time and now he was here to demand a resolution to the issue. You see, this poor man was greatly frustrated because he had paid for 100 pills but had only received 60 in his bottle; so much turmoil over such a small thing! But that is the way this lost world works, isn’t it? Constantly making mountains out of molehills. Thank God I was in the Spirit that day. I gently apologized for the mistake and joyfully offered to put the extra 40 pills in the bottle he had brought with him. His reaction was quite comical. He simply looked at me in shocking disbelief thinking to himself, “Is that it?!” Like many people, he had readied himself for World War III but, being a Christian who has learned to use the Fruit and respond to life’s tests instead of reacting, I gave him a peaceful solution instead. I could have easily argued back that I had not been at that location before and knew nothing about the issue. I could have passed it off to the “regular staff” and let them deal with him. I could have returned fire with fire, acting rudely and telling him where to put that bottle…oh, pardon me, but you know that is the way this world would react, right? But am I a Christian or not? Is there anything about the way I act that is different than the rest or not? It is here, in the test that our true colors show. As his veins receded, he quietly said, “Thank you” and walked away. Issue handled. Problem solved. Storm calmed. This is the purpose of the Fruit after all, to help us truly experience the abundant Life.
So let’s say that you find yourself in one of those minority situations where, it really doesn’t matter how gentle and loving you are, that other person is determined to give you hell. Then you know what the Fruit does? It gives you the grace to do the right thing anyway, to take whatever the person is dishing out but never lashing back at them. The Fruit gives you the strength to allow God to rectify the situation. You see, too many times we want to be “right” and will stop at nothing to make sure we are. This is not a Fruit thing. It is a Pride thing. You cannot force someone else to do the right thing, but you certainly can decide to do the right thing yourself and, through God and the Fruit, we have the power and ability to do just that. Thank God we are not responsible for the way the other person reacts, but we are certainly accountable if we decide to react. Instead, let us choose to lean on God and respond instead, shall we? Remember, we believers are to reflect Jesus, the One we claim to believe in and follow after. So on those rare occasions when the other person or situation does not adjust the way we would want them to, we still can do what we know is right and leave the rest to God, trusting that He’s got it all under control and will work it all out for good. (Gen 50:20, Ro 8:28)
We also must trust that when we respond instead of react, the majority of times we will see a resolution to the issue and, hopefully, that the other person will be impressed in some positive way. This is one of those “open door” situations I spoke about earlier. As we display the fact that we live by Faith by using the Fruit as our source for speaking and acting as we do, others will notice how we do not act like they would. As we distinguish ourselves from the rest of the world, those watching will hopefully want what we have. They will want to respond as we do. They will be less and less attracted to the way they would react and will desire to know how it is we can respond the way we do. Here’s that precious open door, my Friends. But if we got that door open by using the Fruit, we must be careful to continue to use the Fruit to answer their questions. Again, if we try to force Jesus on anyone, that door will slam shut quicker than we can say, “Hallelujah” and we will have to wait for the next opportunity. If we use the Fruit to love them, then we will know what to say and, sometimes more importantly, when to stop. This is always an issue with me because I get so excited when I talk about God and what He has taught me, but I pray, I am getting better at this. And that is exactly what supposed to happen as we spend our time with Him, we get better and better. This is the abundant Life. This should be our ultimate goal.
It is important to mention that the Fruit is a singular word. This simply means that, when the Holy Spirit comes to live in our spirit, He brings every aspect of the Fruit with Him. When we become a true believer and follower of Christ, there is no more saying things like, “I just have no patience for….” Yes, you do have patience! It is one of the virtues of the Fruit. Whether you are maturing in it or not is another story. Sometimes we work on a particular virtue like patience, and sometimes we work on several at a time like peace and gentleness. The point is the Fruit is a whole; if you grow in one area, you will grow in the entire Fruit. There is no separating one part from another, but you must decide to spend time with God and allow Him to grow the Fruit within you. When we do this, we will find that we will not be at a certain level of patience and at a different level of peace, for instance. All the virtues of the Fruit are intertwining. When we mature, we mature all over. This makes sense, right? When we grow physically, our hands do not grow huge while our torsos stay tiny. All parts of us grow together…or at least that is how it supposed to work.
In this corrupt world, there are always exceptions to the rule. Sometimes we humans go through a time of puberty where we seem to grow out of proportion; for instance, our feet get big but the rest of our body is still catching up. I look at my son and think about this at times. He is not grossly out of proportion mind you, but the boy has big feet. This tells us that, most likely, he will be a very tall adult; it hints at his potential. So too it is with the growth of the Fruit within our spirit. Sometimes our peace will be so big that our gentleness will seem disproportionate. We need to understand this because others are observing us from the outside and do not realize, much less see, that we are still growing.
Let me give you an example. The meaning of gentleness is meekness or humility so I will use the word humility for the rest of this example, but understand that I am talking about the virtues of the Fruit. For the most part, an unbeliever does not understand why we are so peaceful; actually, to them, we can look like we are being prideful instead. With good intentions, when something unfavorable happens to us, we will say something like, “I am not worried because I know God’s got my back.” Again to the outsider, we look like our “feet” are too big for our “bodies”- we sound prideful instead of humble and the outsider simply dismisses our peace in the Lord as foolishness and no positive or lasting affects are made. We need to be sensitive to this possibility because our maturity, as well as our impact on that person, relies not only on what has changed in our soul, but also on our outward actions. It is not enough to “know” something we have read and discussed with God- we must show ourselves (for God already knows) that we really do “know” the lesson by acting on it- thus the testing. God will not mature us to the next level until we can handle this one properly. So we must learn to make our outer display of humility equal to our inner growth of peace. If our peace has grown a great deal, we can use the situation above to grow our humility to match that peace by saying instead, “I am not worried because I trust God to do whatever He knows He must.” Now we don’t sound disproportionally prideful but, humbly peaceful that God can be trusted with any situation. The point is we will not reach the next level of maturity until all parts of the Fruit are in synch with one another. If they are in synch, then our whole being is in synch- the Fruit has grown proportionally in our spirit, our soul has accepted the changes that the grown Fruit teaches, and our body is showing that growth through our response to others and/or the situation at hand.
Our whole being -our spirit, soul, and body- must be aligned with God before He allows us to go any higher. And this is a good thing too. I would not want to be given more than I can handle, would you? As a matter of fact, the Bible promises us that God will not give us more than we can deal with (1Co 10:13)…okay, sometimes He seems to be pushing the envelope, but that is how we grow. We find ourselves in a situation where we must return to Him or we are done. But the harder the situation, the more God desires to use us for eternal good- it hints at our potential. The tougher our lives seem, the more God believes that we can display His Fruit and the more He trusts that we will allow our lives to be used for eternal good. God believes and trusts in us! It really is a compliment from God when we find ourselves in different trials in life. (Jas 1: 2-4) I know, I know. No one ever wants to be “complimented” this way, but if we stick with God, I also know from experience that we really can do all things in Him. (Php 4:13) This is not simply theory for me, but it has become a daily reality in my life, one that I could have never imagined.
You see, we simply do not give ourselves enough credit. God created us, He knows what we are capable of. As He has gently told me in the past, “Child, do not tell Me what you can or cannot do. I made you. I know what you can and will do. Trust Me, My Love, you are stronger than you think.” And when I am with the Lord, I can do whatever He asks of me. I am energized about this earthly life and excited about the next and, all of a sudden, I am no longer corrupt, limited, and temporary… when I am with Him… the key is being with Him and this is my greatest problem. Is it yours as well? Then won’t you pray with me?
Dear God, You have made all things good and have provided me with the power and ability to reflect that goodness. But as always, I need Your help. Thank You Father for sending Your only begotten Son so that my sins may be forgiven. Thank You Jesus for sacrificing Your precious Life so that I may receive the power to live for eternity. Thank You Holy Spirit for giving me the Fruit through which I may live the abundant Life here and forever. Continue to provide for my needs, to protect me from harm, to be ever present in my daily life, to pardon me when I do fall short, and to give me peace so that I may bless Your Holy Name by showing the lost world how magnificent You really are. I love You. Amen.
My Friends, the Fruit is our most powerful tool for living and displaying the abundant Life, but the only thing we need concentrate on is being with God. He is faithful to do the rest. He will show us the way if we are looking for His guidance. That takes a great deal of self-control because this world certainly offers much to distract us from Him… but that is a conversation for next time….
Until we meet again. Keep lifting your eyes to God. He’s closer than you think.
Peace, Diane
