Try A Little Kindness

I love Aesop’s Fables. When I was a kid, it was my favorite thing to hear during story time. I read this week where scientist have proven one of the fables as true. Huh. Well, I’ve known that for many years. The old boy knew his stuff. And one thing he knew about was Kindness.
Aesop told a fable about the wind and the sun having an argument. Which was stronger, as I recall. The sun made a bet that the one who could make a man take of his coat was the strongest. The wind went first. The sun hid behind a cloud. The wind blew and blew, but the harder and more fierce the wind blew, the tighter the man held on to his coat. Finally, exhausted, (pun intended) the wind gave up. The sun’s turn was next. He came out from behind the clouds and shone on the man. The man quickly took off his coat. Moral of the story? Warmth, friendliness, and a gentle touch are always stronger than force and furry.

So it is with our daily walk. Do you see how these fruits are building. Love leads to joy, which brings peace, allowing for patience and endurance that will manifest itself as kindness. Listen, you’ve got to "try a little kindness." The stuff is addictive!
Remember Glenn Campbell? Back in the 70’s he crooned...

You’ve got to try a little kindness
Yes, try a little kindness,
Just shine your light for everyone to see
And if you try a little kindness,
You’ll overlook the blindness
Of narrow-minded people, on the narrow-minded streets
Not bad advise at all!

Great Is Thy Faithfulness

There are about 200 geysers in Yellow Stone National Park. However, only 1 geyser stands out. It is not the largest, or the one that shoots water the highest. But it certainly is the most popular.

Its popularity is due to one thing: its dependability. Because once every sixty-five minutes it shoots a stream of boiling water over 170 ft. into the air. You can practically set your watch by it. They call this gyser "Old Faithful."

There are a lot of things in life that you could call faithful. The sun is faithful to rise every morning and to set every night. The tide is faithful to come in and to go out. The government is faithful to tax and spend, and then tax and spend some more. But there is one thing that is more faithful than all of these other things put together, and that is God.

Lamentations 3:22-23 say, "Through the Lord's mercies we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness."

Robert E. Lee once said, "Duty is the sublimest word in our language. Do your duty in all things. You cannot do more, you should never wish to do less."

I heard about a man who was talking to a big tall strapping giant of a fellow. He said, "If I were as big, tall, and strong as you, I would go out in the woods, find the biggest bear I could find and wrestle him right down to the ground." The big man just looked at him and said, "There are plenty of small bears in the woods too."

Some people say, "If I just had a million dollars imagine all the things I could do for god." But as I tell our folks here at Beaverdam, the fact is, you'll do the same thing with a million that you would do with a hundred.

God is looking for a few faithful men and women to change the world. All He asks is for volunteers who do their duty in all things.

The Good Life

"Of all virtues and dignities of the mind, goodness is the greatest, being the character of the deity; and, without it, man is a busy, mischievous, wretched thing." ~ Sir Francis Bacon

"He has shown you, o man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?" Micah 6:8


The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness...and goodness. Galatians 5:22


What does it mean to be good? For some it is the culmination of life. To live the good life, so-to-speak. A hot tub, back rub, and a drink at the pub? The Money, Mansion, and Mercedes in the garage mentality? For some it is a virtue. How well did they treat other people? Did they kick dogs or push down old ladies?

Some say goodness is a matter of the head. If we will only educate our citizenry, teach them ethics and morals and values, they will be good. My question is, whose values and ethics. If it is based on majority rules, then abortion is an ethical (i.e. a good) thing. No, goodness is not about education. If you educate a thief, you’ll only get a smart thief.

Some say goodness is a matter of the hands. The fact is, doing good does not make you good. Goodness is not something that man manufacturers. It is something that God gives. The Bible makes that abundantly clear. “There is none who does good, no, not one.” Romans 3:12. People are not basically good. People are basically bad.

So the biblical conclusion must be that, “Good ain’t good enough.” We consistently fall short of meeting God’s standards of piety and goodness. This means that goodness is not a matter of the hands or a matter of the head. Goodness is a matter of the heart. Jesus said, “A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good things, and an evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth evil things.” Goodness is not a matter of what you know, nor what you do. It is a matter of what you are. Goodness is not a deed that you do; it is fruit that you bear. It is not about what you know, but about Whom you know.

See, if you have love in your heart, joy in your soul and peace in your life; then you will be patient and enduring, you will be kind and ...yes...even good. Nevertheless, it all goes back to love in your heart, doesn’t it. And how do you get that? Micah 6:8, the last part says that you must walk humbly with your God.

How do we live the good life? By having a relationship with God’s Son, Jesus Christ.

The Fruit Of The Spirit Is: Grapefruit?

So the fruit of the Spirit is Love, Joy, Peace and Longsuffering. Stevie asked me the other day what is longsuffering? Longsuffering is kind of like grapefruit. Grapefruit is a hard fruit to eat. For me anyway. I love it. And it is supposed to be healthy. (Isn’t there a grapefruit diet?) But it’s hard. Cut it in half and eat it with a spoon and stingy juice will squirt in your eye. Peel it and eat it like an orange and you have quite a mess with the peelings and the skins. But I love it and so I put up with it. Likewise Longsuffering is a hard fruit of the Spirit. So what is longsuffering? It is, of course, patience and endurance. Listen to James explain this concept...


For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. 4 So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing. James 1:3-4 (NLT)


The word for complete here means mature. God's goal for us is that we be mature Believers; and complete patience makes for a mature Christian. So why do we need longsuffering? Well, troubles and troublemakers are in our lives to develop patience, perseverance, and persistence. It is by patience we see God's work in us, and it is by perseverance we learn God's will for us.


Do you know why longsuffering is so hard? Because it involves waiting. I am convinced one of the most difficult things to do in life is wait. We wait at red-lights, we wait in line at Wal Mart, we wait for football season to get here, and when it is here we wait for Saturday! But we HATE to WAIT!!! We are a culture that exists on instant satisfaction. Microwave popcorn, fast food, instant Lotto tickets, and (as Luke has discovered) TV dinners. For our culture waiting is a difficult, if not an impossible thing to achieve.


The other day I watched Amazing Grace, the movie about William Wilberforce. If you haven’t seen the movie you should. He spent 50 years in politics with one thing in mind, one goal, abolish slavery in England. On his deathbed, he learned that parliament passed the law. He never gave up. He knew somethings were worth fighting for. Some things require endurance and patience, and...oh, my...Longsuffering. Do we have that type of patience, that ability to see a tough issue through to the end.


James goes on to say, “be patient until the coming of the Lord.” (vs 7) The only reason the world is still here is not because God is powerless, nor is it because God is passive; it is because God is patient. He is longsuffering. Jesus is coming back. Make no doubt about it, that is His promise. The question is, what are we doing while we wait? Be patient with others and spread the good news of Jesus Christ and His Amazing Grace!


Blessings,


Steve


FYI

read more about William Wilberforce here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Wilberforce

Peace Like A River

The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, and peace. Joy is contentment with life and our circumstances. Not happiness as we think about it. Well, peace is a similar fruit in that way. I want to let you in on a little secret about peace. Peace is not the absence of problems. Peace is the presence of Jesus in the midst of your problems. You see, you cannot always rejoice in your losses, but you can always rejoice in the Lord.


Paul told us that we should “be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.” Philippians 4:6 (NKJV) What is the opposite of not being anxious? Not worrying. The English word worry comes from the German “wurgën” which literally means to strangle. Worry strangles out our love and joy, and robs us of our peace.

I heard about a man who was a worrier. He worried so much and about so much, he caused people around him to worry. One day he came home from work and he was happy as a lark, his disposition had totally changed. His wife said, “What’s gotten into you? You’re not worried about anything?” He said, “No. Not at all.” She asked him what had changed sense he left for work. He said he had hired a professional worrier to worry for him. Naturally, this worried the wife. She said, “How much is that costing us?” He nonchalantly told her, “$1,000 a day.” She almost passed out! “How are we going to afford that bill!?” she screamed. To which he replied, “I’ll let him worry about that.”


Let me tell you what worry does, spiritually speaking. Worry makes us practical atheists. We may say we trust God, but when we worry, we’re telling God we don’t think much of Him or His abilities. We also tell God we think He is a liar. That He does not keep His word. Like Romans 8:28 or 1 Peter 5:7 where we’re told He works things together for good, and that we are to cast all of our cares upon Him.

So to have peace, we need joy—contentment in our circumstances. And to have joy we must have love—a commitment we make to ourselves and others. Then we may have true, Biblical peace. As Corrie Ten Boone once said: "When I look at the world, I get distressed. When I look at myself, I get depressed. But when I look at Jesus, I am at rest."

Blessings,

Steve

I’ve Got The Joy

So the fruit of the Spirit is Love, then Joy. So I’m pondering on the aspects of joy for the Believer. The Bible makes it abundantly clear that joy, for the Believer, is to be separated from happiness. It’s not that we shouldn’t have happiness. We should. It’s that our joy should be present regardless of our felings. In-other-words; you cannot be happy without being joyful. But you can be joyful without being happy. Happiness is external. Joy is internal. Happiness depends on outward circumstances. Joy depends on inward character. Happiness depends upon what happens to you. Joy depends upon Who lives within you. Happiness is based on chance, while joy is based on choice.

Think of happiness as laughter and joy as peace or contentment. Laughter is good for you, and laughter is healthy. Solomon said: "a merry heart does good like a medicine." (Prov. 17:22) The usual reason for laughter is because something makes us happy. But we don't always laugh because we are not always happy.

But there is a contentment, a gladness of heart, that goes above and beyond happiness—joy. Biblical joy is peace. Consider what James said, “Count it all joy, my brethren, when you fall into various trials. (James 1:2 NKJV). How can we be happy when we go through a trial? We can’t. But we can be content, knowing that, “All thinks work together for good, to those who love the Lord and are called according to His purposes.” (Romans 8:28)

So laughter is good. So how about a joke? A rabbi and priest and a lawyer walk into a bar...OK, maybe not. on a serious note, Vance Haven once said: "The men of the world are not laughing at Christians who 'get happy' over being saved, half so much as they are disgusted with Christians who are showing no evidence of a dynamic transforming experience that makes us love what once we hated, and hate what once we loved."

David put it this way, “But let all those rejoice who put their trust in You; Let them ever shout for joy, because You defend them; Let those also who love Your name be joyful in You.” Psalm 5:11

Laughter is good, but joy is better. Joy resonates in the life of the Believer who has found that God is all they need, because God is all there is. Billy Sunday said, “If you have no joy in your religion, there is a leak in your Christianity.” Jesus said in John.15:11, "these things I have spoken to you, that my joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full."

What does it all mean? I’ve got the joy, joy, joy, joy, down in my heart...down in my heart to stay. As many church signs have quipped, No Jesus—No Peace. Know Jesus---Know Peace.


Blessings,

Steve

First Fruits: Love

So I have been reading and studying about love this week in preparation for the message tomorrow. The first fruit is love, and that makes sense. It is the gateway to the other fruits. (You really can’t have peace, joy longsuffering, etc. with out love.) What I am finding is that the Bible sees love differently than the way we see love. We tend to see love as a feeling. God sees love as a commitment. We see love as an emotion. God sees love as a responsibility. We see love as a matter of the heart, and God sees love as a matter of the will.

I can’t help but think about (and show my age) The Partridge Family crooning “I Think I Love You.” If you “think” you love me, you don’t love me very much! However, our Western Culture has taught us that love is an emotion, a feeling. And a fifty percent divorce rate to go along with that. I don’t advocate arranged marriages, but communities that have them have a much lower divorce rate that we do. I heard about a woman from India who defended arranged marriages by saying, “We don’t get to choose our parents or our siblings, but we grow to love them.” As I said, love is a commitment, not an emotion.

It is a commitment God makes to us and asks us to make to others. It is why Jesus said that the Greatest commandment was to “Love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence.” Matthew 22:37 (The Message) Then love others as we love ourselves. Jesus says there is a hierarchy of Love. God first. Others second. Ourselves last. What would happen if we all lived that example. I should think divorce rates would plummet. Infidelity would disappear. As would child abuse, rape, jealousy, envy, disrespect, and strife. Wars? Murders?

Overall, though we must get it straight and love ourselves and others and God the way God loves us. With a commitment and a dedication. How do we start? By loving ourselves enough to trust in God and His love for us. So start by loving yourself enough to ask God for His love to dominate your existence. Quit sitting on the premises and start standing on the promises! And remember, God loves you and wants the best for you.

Still feeling a little out-of-favor these days? A little unworthy? Then remember this---
God does not love you because you are valuable. You are valuable because God loves you.

Blessings,

Steve

Fruits of the Spirit

I’ve been planning a series of messages coming up that will focus on the Fruits of the Spirit; you know love, joy, peace, Longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, Gentleness, and self -control. We are often (Believers) represented as trees in the Scriptures. For instance, in Psalm 1 we are like a tree planted by the waters.

There is such an interest in the Gifts of the Spirit these days. We all have at least one gift, no doubt about it. And in all honesty, most have more than one. But no one has them all. However, we are all called to have all of the fruits. It makes more sense to me to focus on the fruits, then, instead of the gifts.

It’s like a story I heard about a boy that used to climb down a tree near his bedroom window in order to escape punishment. One night he over heard his father tell his mother that he was going to cut down the tree, because it had stopped producing fruit. The panicked boy spent all night with a bushel of apples and a tube of superglue, and the next morning the tree was full of apples. He then listen for his father to come in with the morning paper and ran downstairs to the breakfast table to see if his plan had worked. Sure enough, the father said, “I can’t believe it, that old tree is full of apples.” Then, looking right at his son, he exclaimed, “It’s a miracle!” Getting nervous, the boy said, “Why do you say that dad?” His father smiled and answered, “Because it’s a pear tree.”

The one thing about a tree...it is known by its fruit. A peach tree doesn’t grow cherries and a pear tree doesn’t grow apples. Fruit reflects the character of the Tree that produces it. Umm...and a Believer’s character is reflected by the fruit he produces. Makes some sense, uh? Are we producing love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self -control?

So focus on these nine “fruits.” Are they present in your life? Do you bear them all? Do you love, have joy, and are you at peace? Are you longsuffering? Are you kind, good, and faithful?Do you exhibit gentleness, and self -control? Let the Holy Spirit fertilize your life and till the fallow ground of your heart so you will bear much of these fruits.

Food for thought.

Blessings,

Steve