Walking to your car after an eight-hour work shift, you are exhausted. You’re almost to your car when a co-worker decides it’s time to chat about life.
At first reluctant to enter the conversation, it becomes apparent this person is in need of help. They are living with two of the four children’s father and on the verge of moving out if things don’t get better. Both work every minute possible to provide for their children and even work second jobs to bring in extra cash. And yet the car she is getting into looks like something out of street racer movie and clearly is something that cost money to retrofit. Money they say they don’t have.
The co-worker mentions their jealousy of another co-worker and says others agree that it’s time to do something to remove that person from the workplace. Your talk ends with an invite to the bar with a few other co-workers wanting to relax and have a good time. You’re hesitant to go. Don’t want to appear to endorse the life this person is living. But you go. Your long day ends with added exhaustion and wondering as you pull into your driveway, “What just happened?” How is it possible for people to live so “in the flesh.”
“The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like.”
“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.”
How is it possible for life to get to a place where every turn is chaos, and there seems to be no end in sight, devoid of the fruit of the spirit?
The answer is a life that lives in the flesh and not in the spirit is a life far from God. Yes, that seems harsh. But a line has to be drawn between what is God-honoring and what is not, recognizing the importance of the fruit of the spirit. What choices you make determines whether you are person honoring God through the fruit of the spirit. That is specifically what is happening in Galatians 5:13-26. Take a look and set your heart on honoring God this day.
