Category: 21 Days to Freedom

Galatians 5:22 — Joy

“But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!”

You know what doesn’t make any sense? Joy in the midst of trials. The only explanation must be a supernatural one. Too often we think that “joy” means we have to be happy, and if we are not happy we are doing this “Christian” thing wrong. We think, “I’m going through a hard time and I don’t like it. I keep praying over and over for God to take it away but he doesn’t. I just must not trust him very much.”

That emotionally stuck place is where joy comes in. James 1 suggests that hardship is an opportunity for joy because we have secret inside spiritual information. From an earthly perspective, your situation may look grim. And it may in fact be grim here on earth. But faith-testing develops perseverance, which brings spiritual maturity and wholeness.

Joy is not a goofy smile with a delusional thought process that denies the hardship. “My life is falling apart, but I’m fine! No, sadness here!” Nope, joy is only possible through the Holy Spirit because we are suffering. Joy is the knowledge that God is in the middle of outsmarting Satan. When Satan is throwing his biggest party about what he is doing to your life, joy can increase because God is in the middle of his greatest spiritual victory.

Here’s your freedom for today: joy is knowledge of and faith in the eternal narrative. Satan doesn’t win, period. Not in your life, not in the world. Armed with this knowledge and faith in the victory of Christ, we gain determination to keep going. What can Satan really do to destroy you? Nothing. He can try a million ways and even destroy your physical body, but he cannot separate you from God’s love or rip out the deposit of the Holy Spirit that comes with surrender to Jesus. When we experience true joy, there is a sense of defiance against this world and its clutches. What does joy look like for you today? What is the enemy doing to make you suffer? Are there ways you can connect with an eternal perspective today that can help you keep fighting your uphill battle?

Galatians 5:22 – Peace

“But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!”

You know what makes even less sense than joy during trials? (See yesterday’s post on joy…) Peace when your life is at constant risk. In his letter to the Philippians, Paul writes about a peace that goes beyond anything we can understand. And since he was in prison at the time and his life was often threatened, he ought to know a thing or two about it. I like to call it the peace that doesn’t make any sense.

Our brains are designed to scan for danger and avoid it at all costs. When something is going wrong that we feel could be a threat to us, we worry. It is a built-in alarm in our brains to signal us to run the other way. But as humans we have the power to override instinct, especially when the Holy Spirit dwells inside us. We can hold on to a greater truth that can stop the signal. Just like when you burn the morning toast and fan the smoke detector to silence the awful beeping, trusting God to override worry restores peace to our hearts.

We must continue to keep in mind the context of this chapter: the flesh and the Spirit are in a war and continually pull you in opposite directions. You can’t get closer to God by trying to follow a bunch of rules because you will fail (the flesh will get you every time). The only hope we have is to seek the Holy Spirit and allow him to guide our lives. We are transformed simply by being with him.

Here’s your freedom for today: peace does not come from somewhere deep inside yourself. Eternal peace, the kind that doesn’t make any sense, can only come from God himself. If you want to totally fail at finding peace, try to work harder at getting it. (That’s about as effective as rushing a lesson in patience, which we’ll talk about tomorrow.) Instead of thinking of peace as a feeling or state of mind, think of it as a place you can go inside the Holy Spirit. It is in this sacred space that we can be sheltered from the torrents bearing down on us in the outside world.

 

Galatians 5:22 — Patience

“But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!”

We could spend today’s devotional talking about how to improve your patience. We could talk about how God challenges your patience by making things take an extra long time. (If you find yourself 10 steps ahead of God, it’s you, not him…) But we are not going to talk about any of those things. Why? Because we have already determined that the fruit of the Spirit is not a list of rules that we are trying to conquer behaviorally. These characteristics describe the very essence of who God is, and we are currently trying to wrap our brains around the idea that the Holy Spirit is being all these things towards us.

So we are going to spend today dwelling on the fact that God is incredibly patient. With me. With you. In no way and at no time is God ever looking at you and wishing you would hurry up and improve already. He is not shaking his head in disappointment or thinking that you are an idiot for not getting this “good Christian” thing sooner. Last I checked, God was pretty well aware of what he was getting into saving a bunch of limited human beings wrecked by sin. It wasn’t because he was looking for a peer relationship. He’s all set with that.

Here’s your freedom for today: God wants to engage with human beings that are slowly becoming. If God were in a rush, he would have saved the world pretty rapidly after the fall of humanity. But he didn’t. I’m not going to attempt to explain why — after all, I barely understand the concept of patience as it is, nevermind fully grasp God’s motivations. I can only guess that those who know how to create something truly brilliant know it is a bad idea to rush. Imagine the Sistene Chapel if Michelangelo had gotten antsy after a year or two. (It took him four.) God is right now at this very moment not rushing you. He is deeply involved in your life, patiently sculpting your very being into the masterpiece he has in mind. As you sit in God’s presence and invite him to have his way, he gently presses your spirit into something more beautiful than yesterday. Right now, you might look like a misshapen lump of clay and you might wonder what he’s up to. But he knows. And he likes it.

 

Galatians 5:22 — Kindness

“But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!”

As we continue to focus on the character and nature of God described in these verses, we consider God’s kindness towards us. Pause for a moment and think with me — what does it mean that God is kind? What does it look like when God demonstrates kindness towards us? Why is kindness a supernatural phenomenon when we have all seen acts of kindness performed by people, whether Christian or not?

Go beyond the human idea of “random acts of kindness” for a minute and venture deeper into a spiritual and eternal realm in which kindness is an inherent part of how things work. True kindness is fundamentally transformative — when you receive it you are forever changed by it.

Romans 11:6 paints this picture for us:

“And since it [salvation] is through God’s kindness, then it is not by their good works. For in that case, God’s grace would not be what it really is—free and undeserved.”

Here’s your freedom for today: the kindness of God extends the offer of relationship to us. He has come to rescue and save because he is kind. Those last words, “free and undeserved” are why this supernatural kindness is so life changing. This is a no-strings-attached, eternally-lasting kindness that we are simply free to take. Or not. He’s not just being “nice” or “polite” — there is something far deeper in the kindness of God that comes with a gift of incredible worth.

Many of us believe in God and perhaps have been Christians a while, but we are still trying to be “good enough” to be really, really saved. It’s the most un-Gospel gospel message ever preached. If I have to be good enough, then why did Christ even come? The Gospel is good news only if it sets us free. So go ahead, take God’s kindness today. Live in total freedom because God at his very nature is kind to you.

Galatians 5:22 — Goodness

“But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!”

What is the difference between “being good” and “goodness”? Christians so often focus on that first one… We try so hard to “be good” that we pretty much miss the whole point about what it means to live a free life in the Spirit.

Being good requires you to follow all the rules. But, um, Jesus (who never sinned, by the way) broke a lot of rules. Not God’s rules. Man’s rules. You know, all that religious stuff that all the important leaders said was required in order to really follow God’s rules? Jesus was terrible at “being good,” whether he was picking grain on the Sabbath (or worse — healing someone!), flipping tables at the Temple, or talking to unsavory women. (There was that one time a prostitute literally could not stop kissing Jesus’ feet and he commended her while totally slamming all the guys for not welcoming him nearly as warmly… yeah, that happened in Luke 7).

But Jesus was inherently good. God’s very nature embodies goodness. So what is “goodness” if it is not the same as “being good”? Perhaps the most commonly known verse about goodness is found in Psalm 23:6:

“Surely your goodness and unfailing love will pursue me all the days of my life, and I will live in the house of the Lord forever.”

My first observation in trying to understand goodness is that it is connected here with the words “unfailing love.” Interestingly, Isaiah 63:7 also mentions goodness along with unfailing love. This pairing gives us a clue about goodness — it is deeply intertwined with God’s love that will never let us down.

One more key word to notice from the verse in Psalms: pursue. God’s goodness pursues us. And for what reason? To give us eternal free room and board. God is the best dad ever, and he is so good he chases us around inviting us to eat with him and live with him for free forever. Pretty sweet deal!

Here’s your freedom for today: God is for you. He is pursuing you. He is inviting you over and giving you an eternal home. His goodness is so good that he isn’t asking you to get yourself together first. You’re a total mess? No problem, he loves messes. It’s totally his favorite. You are totally his favorite. As you are. Right now. Yes, he’s that good.