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Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Daily Devotional June 12 - Through good times and ...

"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law." Galatians 5:22-23

As you can see from this list that the fruit of the Spirit is not all sugar plums and lolly pops. Even though there is love and peace and joy, there is longsuffering, meekness and temperance also. With God you can expect a balance. It is the way that God created the earth and all that is in it. This balance makes us whole. The Spirit filled life is a balanced life.

In each of these attributes above you can see how God wants His people prepared. The love, joy and peace we can live with day in and day out without getting tired of it, the longsuffering, meekness and temperance, well... When we are prepared, the love, peace and joy times are full of the goodness of God and you can sense a reward for a job well done. But the longsuffering, meekness and temperance part of the balance we sometimes try to sweep under the rug as if it were not part of the plan. When you are prepared, i. e., (following the leadership of the Holy Spirit in your daily lifestyle), when times comes that require longsuffering, humility or temperance, you bear them well, because they did not catch you off guard and unprepared.

We are all going to go through things that are not pleasant or worse, but the way you go through them is in direct proportion to how prepared you are in the Spirit. The Bible talks about this a lot. Each day you should pray that God will prepare you for the good times and the not so good times. Both are part of the spiritual life and both are part of the balance of life. The Holy Spirit lives in you and wants to reveal Himself through you and the fruit of the Spirit is when you consciously allow the Holy Spirit to operate through you. When you allow the Holy Spirit to operate through you, your fruit looks real good. Isn't that what you really want, to be available for God to work His plan in and through your life?

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