November 21 2011

Keep‘em Spinning
 
Reading: Galatians 5:22-23,  22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. (NIV)

I don’t know about you guys… but there are times that I really struggle. I feel like I have just got a plate spinning nicely up on a stick. Then, someone comes along to say, “Hey, you are suppose to have this plate spinning too.” So, I start spinning that plate. Meanwhile, the first plate starts to wobble, so I quickly try to get the first one spinning faster again before it falls off. Then, I just get the 2 spinning together, not as fast as they should be spinning, but, hey, they’re spinning… and someone else comes along and says, “Oh, no… you’re suppose to have this plate spinning too.” Now, I’m starting to feel a bit of pressure. This keeps happening until I have 9 plates spinning and I feel like I’m running back and forth between plates and the only thing that I’m doing is just trying to keep the plates from falling… I’m not really spinning them well. Sometimes those 9 plates are similar to the fruits of the Spirit. You hear someone say that you should be spinning the plate of “love”, so you start to spin and someone else says that you should be working on the joy of the Lord, so you start to spin that plate. One by one, you are told that you should be working on having peace, being patient, being more kind, demonstrating goodness, maintaining faithfulness, being gentle and, for goodness sakes, be self-controlled. And, now, you’re spinning all 9 plates… but, you see patience slipping, so you run over to get that spinning again, and so on. Men, this passage states that it is a FRUIT! It is a result of the Spirit of God within you. These things are merely a gauge as to how much you are living in the Spirit… one plate. All you have to do is focus on the one plate of living in the Spirit and HE spins the rest. What a relief!

In what area of the 9 fruits of the Spirit are you lacking right now?

What can you do today to focus, not on that fruit, but on living and walking with and in the Spirit today?

 

End of the Day Review
  
How were you able to focus on living and walking with and in the Spirit of God today?
 
 
How were you able to see it help produce or enhance the fruit of the Spirit?