Gentleness and Self-Control: Living the Fruit of the Spirit

Think about even the act of planting a fruit or a vegetable or whatever. I'm not a gardener, I don't have a lot of knowledge on that, so I'm not gonna sit here and try to act like I do. But I know it takes time. It takes work. It takes, attention. It takes effort. The Lord's gonna develop these things in us, but he also calls us to follow after him, and we have to put in our side of the work too. We have to spend time with him. We have to learn more about him. But don't get discouraged because it takes time. [00:29:30] (31 seconds)  #GrowthTakesTime

Think about that just for a moment right now. When we think about this idea of self control, I even go into the idea of gentleness and this entire the fruit of the spirit. It's gonna be tough on this earth sometimes because our flesh desires differently. The world tells us differently. It's gonna be tough a lot of the time. But if we keep that self control, if we keep falling after him, we're gonna reach the end of our lives, and we're gonna be able to say, I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race. I have kept the faith. [00:57:42] (37 seconds)  #FightTheGoodFight

And Paul's speaking here from the perspective of truly preaching to crowds at times, but that's each and every one of us. Because we can sit there and we can go and tell people the gospel. We can share God's word with them till we're blue in the face. But if our life isn't defined by the gospel in any way, if all they see is the world and our flesh, they're not gonna care about what we're saying because we don't look any different. [00:54:06] (26 seconds)  #GospelInAction

I think very often we will sit here and we study scripture, we hear a sermon or whatever it may be, and it's like, yeah, can work on that. But then as soon as the service is ever, we don't think about it again. I wanna encourage you right now, if you're taking notes or if you're not taking notes, get out something and think about this. And don't let this be something that you think about that we could improve upon and then forget. No. Write it down. Take some take a moment just to write down what you need to improve on, how you wanna grow in the Lord in these areas, And then work towards it. Trust in the Lord to work in it, to work through you. [01:00:46] (38 seconds)  #ApplyWhatYouLearn

and that is that we keep our mind on eternal things. You'll hear me say that. You've heard me say it many, many times. You'll hear me say it many, many times again. Keep our minds on eternal things. Question we should ask ourselves when something happens, what is the eternal significance of this? Because the majority of the time when something happens to us, that eternal significance is zero. How we respond to it and how we demonstrate the Lord's, grace and mercy through us in that situation, that has eternal significance. That's gonna reach people. [00:55:52] (40 seconds)  #EternalPerspective

And he said something that completely transformed my way of thinking. We talked about those emotions earlier. He said, you're not saved by your emotions. He said, if any of us were saved by our emotions, none of us will be saved because our emotions are fleeting. So if you're in that stretch right now where you just don't feel like you're seeing a ton of growth, I'll just encourage you to keep pressing on for the Lord. Keep spending time in his word. Keep living for him. [01:02:22] (24 seconds)  #FaithBeyondFeelings

One, remember that this is all encompassing, so it's not just one. But two, remember that, yes, they can still display these good qualities because the Lord still created them. We can take it all the way back to Genesis chapter one, where they where God says, let us make man in our image and our lack after our likeness. We were all made in God's image. We're all made to reflect his qualities. So even somebody that's not following after the Lord still can reflect some of these good qualities. And we want to encourage them in that and use those as ways to point them to the gospel. [00:32:39] (40 seconds)  #MadeInGodsImage

I'll tell you in my life, there's been many seasons where I've struggled with that daily time in God's word. And what I found is during those times, my entire outlook can be different. My first thought when I'm going throughout the day is not about is this glorifying the Lord. And I'm not gonna sit here and say that every single moment of every day, I have that thought now because I'm not. I'm imperfect. I struggle. But I can tell a distinct difference between when I'm spending time in God's word versus when I'm not. And when I am, my thoughts come back to him so much more. [00:46:54] (31 seconds)  #WordShapesLife