Growing in the Lord & Walking in the Spirit

 First off, I am so sorry I have not written here in a while, and I am still not at a regular posting schedule. While I know there is no excuse that makes up for the way I have been acting, I have been fairly busy with school and work. I am getting details worked out about my summer plans, which I would love to talk about in a later post. Also, I am working on scheduling my life better, and sticking to it so I should be able to have more free time and more productive study time and work time.  But, let' get back to the focus of the blog post. As you can tell by the title, my goal is to talk about Easter. The message that the easter story brings always makes me feel so blessed and thankful for all that the Lord has done for me. One of the many problems with Easter is, though, that this holiday only happens once a year, and the focus does not seem to be completely on Christ.  Here is what I mean by that: When Easter Week comes, it starts on Palm Sunday morning. If a Christi...

It's impossible to show all of the Fruit of the Spirit at all times. I mean, maybe it is possible. But, I have found that no one can show all the Fruit of the Spirit at all times, to all people. We all have our bad days or hours. We all make mistakes. These are attributes we want to become a part of us. We should want the Fruit of the Spirit to come naturally to us as we grow in these areas. It will take time, and no one will ever have it all down. But, we always need to turn to God and ask for His leading for what He wants us to do or say in every situation He gives us.  I am no expert at all of these. Yes, I have some of the attributes that might come more naturally to me than others, but I also have a list of attributes I need to work on- seeds of the fruit if you would have it. We all have seeds that we need to add to the fruit, and some are already mature and ready to bear more fruit. It's always a process, and we need to be patient throughout as we follow what God tells u...

I feel like self-control kind of wraps up all of the attributes of the Fruit of the Spirit into one. Without self-control many of the above words are difficult. Like I mentioned when I was talking about love, we often find it difficult to love people we don't get along with. Sometimes it can get more extreme and we want to do the opposite. No matter what level, it takes self-control to love someone we don't want to. It takes self-control to have joy in tough situations. It takes self-control to be patient with those who aren't 'worthy' of being patient. It takes self-control to show the Fruit of the Spirit on a daily basis.  To be honest, I think this was one of the hardest ones for me to learn when I was younger. Don't get me wrong- I don't have it all perfect yet either, but I have been able to improve in this area with the Lord's help. But, I struggled with this one as a child because I wanted the immediate satisfaction of getting the 'prize' ...

Gentleness. Does this mean we need to not roughhouse? Everyone needs to be treated like a flower? When my siblings and I were younger, we were constantly told by our parents that we needed to be gentle with one another, because our siblings are like flowers. But is that what being gentle is like? Is it all physical?  When I first think of the word "gentle" I think of my childhood. Whenever my siblings and I would roughhouse, my mom would always remind us to be gentle- she would remind my brother that all girls are flowers. So, gentle meant soft, slow, careful. But, when we are commanded to be gentle towards others in our lives, does that only mean that physical carefulness? No, I think there is more to the meaning of the word gentle in this verse.  God called us to be gentle with others. While we should be careful with what we say or do around others already, it always gets harder when we are angered and feel wronged. We need to be careful with what words or actions pop out a...