Day 263

Isaiah 47:1-49:7, Galatians 5:7-26, Psalm 109:1-20

Today of course we have seen quite a significant passage in the fruits of the Spirit. The thing that got my thoughts going first though was the prophecy against Babylon. The prophet had spent some time talking to Israel and then he starts on Babylon, and I kind of wonder how much they listened. This was a foreigner telling them all about what his God was going to do, the God who seemed to have deserted them, hence they were in exile!

I got wondering as to whether the Babylonians believed and remembered everything that God had done in the past and whether they feared him at all, even a small amount! Do you believe a random prophet who is sprouting forth when it doesn’t seem relevant or real. It was this that got me thinking about the pastor in America who is prophesying the rapture this very night, the end of the world is imminent, and guess what, people aren’t believing him!

It was then that the Galatians passage jumped into its own. I was wondering how the two thoughts reconcile themselves because I knew that I had to talk about such an important passage as the fruits of the Spirit. It is when we are marked by the fruits of the Spirit that people can see we have the marks of Christ and they may start to believe what we say about Christ. When we are marked by selfish ambition, hatred, fits of rage etc then people will quite rightly question whether the words we bring are truly from the Lord.

To say that we will always fulfil all the fruits all of the time is unrealistic, we are human after all. But we can try! When we try then people will see Christ within us and see the work of the Spirit within us.

That is the fruit of the Spirit.