Fearlessly Courageous
Desk of Dennis Piller
9/9/2022
When was the last time you critically examined your own fruit?
Fruit… where does it come from? I woke up this morning thinking about the fruit of our lives. Ultimately, we are in complete control of that. We have no one else to blame for the good or the bad of decisions we make, thoughts and images we entertain or for simple acts of disobedience… because we want to or wanted that!
When the Holy Spirit comes into our lives, we produce the fruit of the Spirit. God is there. He deposits His fruit. But, it's your decision to eat of it and make it the heart of who you are. Before Paul talked about the fruit of the Spirit, he talked about the fruit that comes from our sins. Our sin brings things like anger, greed, jealousy, and so much other junk that separates us from God’s spirit. Every day we get to choose again, which tree we are taking our fruit from.
Gal. 5:22 “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance,
kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
I thought about what we see and how that affects our fruit. I think that what we see has a tremendous impact on our mental health and our heart health. I’ve read and experienced how destructive pornography is. Dr. Dobson sat on a commission to evaluate the depth that pornography affects people. He said after watching hundreds of hours of porn that his mind began to acclimate or even to dumb down the filth that was entering his mind as not being as startling as when he began. Even with his strong Christian foundation, he was changing due to the impact of repeated exposure to its filth and depravity.
Everything that we choose to watch on TV has a lasting impact, as our eyes are a camera that never stops transferring pictures to our minds and soul.
The truth is they’re more than pictures, they are seeds that will reproduce and grow within us. And they do. Some of us are the proud recipients of
Oak Trees of junk! Of justifications! Of Sin!
I look at the fruit of what we hear in the marketplace or in the comfort of our family familiarity with our friends or family and I wonder what kind of seeds are growing. I can tell you we grow the same kind of seeds that we plant or allow the world to plant in us. And we will harvest the fruit of those seeds. It might be music, it might be language or profanity, it may be gossip or the negativities of being around people who see the glass always half empty. Or people who justify away the shadows of the world as the new normal. And how do those seeds impact the always fertile ground of those that live around us? Children, friends, etc.
What exactly is the fruit of what we think? We can’t know that until we evaluate the seeds that we allow into our minds and into our thinking. Have you ever had your imagination just take flight? Like when this beautiful person walks by and you can’t take your eyes off of them. Like, where did that thought come from? Or can you hear that small still voice say…STOP… I will not go there! Or, I can’t foster that type of thinking. Or I know that can’t be true of someone…
I must choose to think along the high ground
to those things that are pure and honorable.
It is said that it’s one thing to have a thought that flickers for a moment, like a bird who rest on a branch but there’s a big difference when we allowed them to build a nest and then a fortress in our thinking and into our hearts.
The Bible says to guard our hearts. How can we do that without guarding what we see, what we hear, let alone what we do?
Rom 11:16 “If the part of the dough offered as first fruits are holy, then the whole batch is holy; if the root is holy, so are the branches.
Who are you?
Someone said, that we are the books that we read, the music that we listen to, the TV that we watch, and the friends that we spend time with. What do you say? Have I left something out of this formula of what makes us who we are? All of them are choices we make every minute of every day. Choices…decisions…directives to move forward or retreat or do nothing…ALL fed by those four things. Each one is an element of your God filter or the world. (In between is lukewarm…ouch!) Each one either fits into our God filter or our selfishness… self-satisfying… self-indulging…joy of the moment…fix of the moment…or a distraction that fills what wants and needs are invading our lives? When we are not seeing Godly or holy fruit that means we have squeezed out God…the Holy Spirit. The light of God is no longer strong enough in you to overcome the temptation of the week. We can change that by repenting and dwelling again on His thoughts.
Matt 3:8 “Produce fruit in keeping with repentance".
You answer where you fit in. You think about what you want your life to be about. Or…you can say…Yep, your right and go on with your day. Or make a decision to do better… commit to change…that means who will you tell…what friend will you be accountable to about not some broad generality but specifically, things you feel do not honor God or your family.
If you won’t stop and think through this as it applies to your life, you can expect nothing but conviction from reading this. And without getting off the porch and planting some new seeds…some new habits…some new directives…with accountability and obedience. We are just a feel-good Christian wanting God to line up with what we do, instead of us lining up with what God has already told us…and displayed for us in His directional handbook.
It’s time we started filling our hearts and lives with his unchanging, living word don’t you think? And whom will you choose to do this with? If you don’t commit with and to someone you will fail before you pass out the month. Let me leave you with this:
John 15:16 “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you.
Lauren Daigle Rescue
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYR0xP1j4PY&list=PL3oW2tjiIxvTstLS9GlgaT_mqONT0WVDw
