Greetings. I just want to forewarn you I am down to three weeks left of the busiest quarter of my seminary career. On top of being busy, I will be writing at least three or four papers a week, so writing blog posts might not make the top of my priority lists. I will try to keep putting up short posts at least but no promises. Life has been good even in spite of the busyness. Erin came back this last weekend and we had a great time together. I did liturgy at church and got through Psalm 2 and 23 in Bible study. I got a 91 on my miracle sermon after finally breaking down and doing it the way the professor wanted. I will post the manuscript maybe tomorrow. I am going to preach it February 10th, and have to video tape it for class. I will try to find a way to post the video up here too. I am in the process of writing a parable sermon now, with my parable being Luke 18, the persistent widow. Depending on how it comes out, I will try to post it as well.
My thought for the day is short and simple because I need to go to bed. My good friend Logan from college was messaging me online tonight. He is in his student teaching phase right now and is finding the real world of lesson plans and working stressful and time consuming. As he was venting about how busy he was, I tried to help with a simple quote. It is from a country song, but I am pretty sure I have heard it other places before too. The quote is, "Idle hands are the Devil's workshop." We have all experienced this haven't we? We find ourselves bored or just think there is nothing to do. Before we know it we are stressing over what we should be doing, thinking about others in a judging tone, maybe fall into old habits of drinking, smoking, or other bad habits. The Devil loves when we tell ourselves there is nothing we need to be doing. In a way, the busy pace of life keeps us active and doing what we should be doing. The trick is to learn to everything we do faithfully so as we stay busy, we are doing what we actually should be doing and serving the Lord.
Well while I thought this was going to be short, I couldn't help but notice this fits in perfectly with what we were discussing in Pauline Epistles class today. In Galatians 5 where Paul lists the lists of sins first and then the fruit of the Spirit, Dr. Kloha led us to a very important point. I am not going to go through the entire exegetical break down but the point is the list of sins is plural. It is a list of things we are supposed to avoid. However, the list of the fruit of the Spirit, while there are multiple things, the word fruit is singular. You see a Christian's main focus should not be all the things we are to avoid. Instead the focus should be the fruit. What does this fruit look like, well love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control are all verbs that take place in our relationships. See as Christians we are not to concern ourselves with what we are not supposed to do or even what we are supposed to do, but rather being a Christian is just a state of being where the fruit of the Spirit flows from us in every relationship. We do not make a check list of "I didn't do any of these things today" and we do not make a check list of "I accomplished these things today." Instead, we just are what God made us, a character in the narrative of the Gospel. We are a Christian which means we are the fruit of the Spirit in everything we do. Look at Luther's explanation of the Ten Commandments in the Small Catechism. He tells us that yes these are things we are not suppose to do, but even more important they are just simply the way we are supposed to live in our every day interactions. Being a Christian is a state of being, being faithful, being the fruit of the Spirit. This is what we are called to be, and we do it even when life keeps us busy.
Dear Heavenly Father,
Please give us Your Spirit to guide us and be with us, so that we may be the faithful ones You have called us to be. Help us to see the busyness of this life as a blessing that allows us to do what we need to do. Help us to be the fruit of Your Spirit even in these times. Most importantly help others to see Your grace, love, and mercy through us and all we do. In Your Son's name we pray, Jesus Christ our Savior, Amen.
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