Transcript
Speaker: But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self -control. Galatians 5, 22 -23.
Speaker: Goodness, Heavenly Father. Goodness is such a complicated fruit of the Spirit because it's not just about what I do or what I say.
Speaker: It's about the motivation behind my words and actions. It's about whether those words and actions are coming from a place of love and from your spirit or whether they're coming ah from a place of so often it can appear like I'm doing the good thing, the right thing,
Speaker: But the motivation behind angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other. I'm part Saint, part sinner because of your love and your redemption, I have the spirit within me. And so I can have the capacity to be My default is selfishness. My default is to think about my words and actions in terms of how they benefit me and not how they benefit others.
Speaker: And yet your word is so clear and Jesus was so clear with the way that he lived his life. He gave up his life, not just on the cross, but even before that's so hard for me to
Speaker: just trying to get through this messy world that we live in. But you flip everything on its head and you say, no, it's not about you getting through the world. It's about helping
Speaker: The only way that I can even think about the fruit of goodness showing up in my life, Lord, is for me to get completely out of the way and to just let you shine through me and let your spirit work on my heart and work on my mind and work on my soul. So that when I'm tempted to act out of self -interest, when I'm tempted to Put the things that I value That the way of Jesus is to forgive the people who hurt
Speaker: to transform me transform me from the inside out that the darkness that is in me would be replaced with your light that the selfishness within me would be replaced with the goodness and the trueness of your spirit so that my life would be colored by the flower of goodness that the tree of my life
Speaker: would show the fruit of your love for me in the way that I love others. I ask this all in Jesus' name, who was our ultimate guide and example of goodness. I love you. Amen.
