Look in the Mirror

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.”
Galatians 5:22-23

Every human being on this planet has been made in the image of God. But how many of us actually look like Him? 

Look in the mirror, who do you see looking back? Do you see Jesus? There is something very important about this week’s passage. If we could turn this list into a picture it would not be a picture of nine separate things, it would be a picture of one thing, actually it would be a picture of one person - Jesus. 

Look in the mirror again, who is looking back? Does your life reflect Jesus because it holds some measure of the character of Him? Each of these things: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control are connected. You can’t have one without the others. Pastor Billy Rieder preaching from this passage provided a telling example of what happens when we try to make these characteristics separate. Perhaps you consider yourself to be faithful, but not so kind - you somehow missed the kindness line. Pastor Billy says that eventually leads us to being “faithfully unkind.” 

We will not look fully like Jesus until that day when we see Him face to face, but until then we should be growing to look more and more like the One who willingly gave Himself for us. How do we do this? How do we start to look like the fruit of the Spirit? We need to allow the Spirit to walk with us every day; we need to surrender our heart and minds completely to His ways. That will allow us to learn to love others the way Jesus loves us. That kind of love will allow the other characteristics of the fruit to develop.

Look in the mirror again? Who do you see?

A Prayer
Father, you made all of mankind in your image. Mankind messed up that image in ourselves. Help us to allow You to produce in us the fruit that will once again allow us to see Your image not just in ourselves but in everyone around us. If the fruit where a portrait it would be a portrait of Jesus and it is in His name that we pray - Amen.