God Offers Christians a Better Way to Measure the Fruitfulness of Their Lives
The Quiet Ways God Works
Obviously, we’re not against being productive. We’re not against being efficient. There are lots of great things about having some kind of system, having some kind of order in your life, and that can be God’s grace to us to have a plan for the meals for the week, to have a schedule for the meetings for tomorrow.
We’re not against that, but I think we get into trouble when we start to measure our self-worth—when we start to measure how the Lord sees us—by how much we got done, what we can check off our list, what we can accomplish. And so the fruit of the Spirit reminds us that it’s the Lord who works in us and brings good things out of our efforts. And sometimes those are the hidden and quiet things.
Fruitful
Megan Hill, Melissa B. Kruger
This 40-day devotional unpacks each of the 9 fruits of the Spirit listed in Galatians 5, bringing theologically rich reflection and practical application to women seeking a more fruitful life.
It’s gentleness and it’s self-control and it’s patience. And those are things that don’t scream loudly. They don’t look like something that you would be able to trumpet publicly because they’re quiet things that the Lord is working in you. And so as we look for the Spirit to bring those things into our lives, then it transforms what we consider to be a good day or a good week or a week in which we’ve honored the Lord, because we’re looking for the Lord to be at work, first of all, and not for what we’ve accomplished.
And then we’re looking for those quieter things that make us like Christ and that reflect Christ in our hearts and in our lives. Maybe these things are not what the world thinks of as accomplishments, but they’re certainly what the Lord loves to do in us.
Megan Hill is the co-editor with Melissa B. Kruger of Fruitful: Cultivating a Spiritual Harvest That Won’t Leave You Empty.
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