This month I have been reading and digesting the book Radical by David Platt. It is an excellent read that has challenged me to examine my faith in the context of the American culture. Platt examines the effect on the “American Dream” on the American church and whether this concept has hindered our effectiveness in living biblically. Obviously, he believes it has, but my review of his book is not the point of this post.
The most rewarding part of reading Platt has been the opportunity I’ve had to discuss the work with several young Christians in Houston at a biweekly “summer book club” that for right now functions more like a community group as we allow the book to guide our discussion but somehow we always get off track on little tangents.
This week, one of my friends brought up that sometimes, even when he feels he is doing the right things God commanded us to do, he feels conflicted. Sometimes he feels as though he can’t tell whether he is walking in the flesh or walking in the Spirit. He can’t tell if pride in doing good works is driving him or the Spirit is guiding him. So he posed this question, “How do we know when we are walking in the Spirit?”
What a question! My response was this, “Well, doesn’t Scripture say that those who have the Holy Spirit will bear fruit?”
“Right,” he said. “But does it mean by bear fruit?”
Another great question! And so applicable to the book we are reading! Platt examines very closely the idea of church growth and how we go about it. Is it all about the numbers? Is church membership growth equivalent to “bearing fruit”? I would submit that of course the Lord will continue to add to the number of His people in His time, and His church will continue to grow globally and locally, and yes, this is part of the fruit we bear. But is this all God calls for?
Scripture tells us very clearly what walking in the Spirit looks like, and it even tells us specifically what “fruit” we are told to bear! Galatians 5:16-25 gives us a great description of this fruit. Read it really quickly! First Paul says, “But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.” He goes on to tell us what the flesh desires (more on that in later posts). Then he tells us what the fruit of the Spirit are: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
Now this text used to be just a “Sunday School song” for me: i.e., didn’t really mean much to me, but my Sunday School teachers would think I was really smart if I had it memorized. Thank goodness that I memorized it though, because now it has really hit home! So often we go about praying, reading God’s word, living in community, and following God’s commands and forget what the end goal is. The end goal is not to simply check these boxes off on these spiritual discipline checklists daily (even though it may require some faithfulness and self-control). The end goal of all of the disciplines we are taught in the church is to develop the fruits of the Spirit! If we are not developing these characteristics in our lives, we have left the Spirit out of our discipline and are not being fruitful. So, from now on, I am going to try to examine myself based on these characteristics! This way, reading Scripture will no longer be examined by the number of days I spent reading in a week, but did I find JOY in reading Scripture every day. Giving to those in my community will not be measured on how much I gave, but how LOVING and KIND I was in giving it. I think you get the idea. My next project here will be blogging about each of these fruits and what the Lord is teaching me about them. I hope you enjoy!
