| “Against such things there is no law.” |
| —Galatians 5:23 |
Did you ever work somewhere that required you to take inventory? I once had jobs that involved taken inventory:
During my junior high and high school years I worked part-time at four different places: a boat store, a jewelry store, a wholesale electronics store, and a radio station. Once each year at all four places, I had to take inventory.
We had to count every item in stock and write down how many we had of each item. This was in the period of time from 1959 through 1965. We had no computers. The inventory was done manually. It was an arduous task, especially at the wholesale electronics store. We had to remove each item from its storage place, examine it carefully, write down its identifying number, and keep a record of how many similar items we still had in stock. This process took lots of time and required a careful attention to detail.
In our lives as followers of the Lord Jesus Christ, we should pause from time to time and conduct an inventory of the fruit we are allowing the Holy Spirit to produce in our lives, as we submit our selfish wills to God’s perfect will. The Apostle Paul helps us in this process by naming the fruit in Galatians 5:22-23:
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.
How about it? As we examine our lives at the beginning of this new day, how do we answer these questions?
- Does this fruit grow within the core of our spiritual beings?
- Do we manifest the fruit of the Holy Spirit’s divine Presence in our lives?
- Do the people with whom we come into contact each day clearly see the vitality of this fruit marking our lives?
Let us take a fruit inventory today. And, if we have a deficit, let us humbly ask God to renew the particular kind of fruit that may be missing from our lives.
Allowing the fruit of the Spirit to take hold in our lives will make us more like Jesus. As His ambassadors in this very needy world, that surely is one of our most important goals.
Based on a blog originally posted on Wednesday, March 2, 2016
