Be With Me: 7 Minutes of Biblical Wonder

Do not grow weary of doing good.  It is a reminder to be doing good in the first place.  It calls us to be in a place were the goodness of service and love and bearing burdens is an expectation.  It is a call to especially love those in your household of faith.  

What are my duties? Love, serve, bear burdens, do goodness.
To whom are they owed? First to the household of faith.  Second, to everybody.

So, set your mind not to grow tired of goodness. Expose yourself to those who are not weary. I'd imagine many of those are the young. Expect goodness, service and non-weariness of those around you. Finally, go FIND THE WEARY and encourage them back to unwearied spiritual health.  Thank you for reading.  Now listen for 7 minutes and set your mind to really listen tomorrow too if the Lord gives us another day.  Please subscribe, share, like, comment and follow.  bewithme.us.  Find us on Apple, google, Spotify, audible, etc.

Are you a joy to your pastor?  How would he know? If we asked him about his congregation, "who is a joy to you?" Would your name come up?

We are drilling into pure practicality today.  The theology is already laid out in the first 5 chapters.  Now we ask the squirmy questions:

• Are you putting yourself on the path of service?
• Are you putting yourself on the path of fellowship?
• Are you putting yourself on the path of worship?
• Are you putting yourself on the path of teaching/learning/praying?

There is the principle of the farm at work here.  You are going to get what you sow.  You are going to reap a harvest of what you put in the ground by your attentions and intentions.  LET US TEST ourselves.  I will see you on Apple Podcasts, or Spotify, or google podcasts.  Subscribe like or share.  bewithme.us

Let's get down to the brass-tacks of how to love.  After trashing the old LAW for five chapters, Paul reminds the Galatian area churches of a NEW LAW, given by Jesus at the Last Passover/First Supper.  It is to LOVE as HE has loved and be known by others by this.

Of particular note, this love is a TESTED love.  Check your work. Look over your life. See how you are bearing your load.  See if you are bearing the burdens of others. See if you are putting yourself in the path of temptation. See if your are on a path to pride.

God gives every believer an OAR to row with (a gift for the church by the Holy Spirit). He asks today do you have an OAR? (yes). Is your OAR in the water? Is your OAR pulling in the right direction? right attitude? right humility? And frankly, How hard are you pulling on your OAR? Test your own work.  Which is to say, Test your love.  Test the way you love.  Please share, like, comment and be a fan. bewithme.us

Sometimes things blow up in Rockets and in the Church.  The big question is what do you do just AFTER something blows up.  Do you freak out and shut the doors?  Everybody cries and goes home?  Or, do you engage a process of restoration to return us to our valuable main goal?

SpaceX has a terminology for Rocket EXPLOSIONS: Rapid Unscheduled Disassemblies (RUDs).  They have had a few.  They ask the question time and time again, "Is our goal worth the trouble of the restoration process to get us back on track?"

There are failures in the church.  It is made up of mostly people.  We should not be surprised. (I sometimes hear people be surprised at this reality. "The people of the church failed me."  Of course they did. They are people.) So then, what happens next? We don't celebrate costly explosions in the church.  We do what it tells us in Gal 6:1: engage in a process of restoration.  Don't be surprised. This is important. Of course sometimes things blow up.  We have a plan for that.  It is one of restoration.  email bewithme.us@gmail and I'll send you the podcast daily.

What's the second most valuable thing given away for FREE every Sunday at church?  It is FELLOWSHIP.  It is the protective cloak that God gives as a gift to the Church of people.  We need each other.  Why?  Because we're a bunch of knuckleheads.  Join a church, you'll see...

So we mess up.  Is the church to toss everybody who messes up?  Nope.  The church would be e-m-p-t-y.  Jesus doesn't do that.  We shouldn't either.  It calls us to be IN FELLOWSHIP; be close enough to see and know and help and be trusted. Now for the hard part: engage when we see a brother in transgression to the "law of love".  The goal isn't to fire him.  The goal is to win him back; to RESTORE him.  This is a high calling of the church.  By high calling, I mean this is DIFFICULT. But it is worth it.

Remember, we are dealing with the second most precious thing at church. The call is to value it enough to try hard to preserve it. Restore knuckleheads to Christ.  Restore knuckleheads to His precious body.  Share this with someone who is far away. bewithme.us   

How do I get the FRUIT of the Spirit?  A little at  a time.  Just like eating an elephant.

At first, the list of Galatians 5:22-23 is absolutely overwhelming.  So, perhaps let's identify ONE to work on.  Or, if you are like me, perhaps someone around you has identified an acute needfulness in your character.

We will look and see if goodness, patience and faithfulness characterizes our walk with the Spirit.  We'll consider when I walk with the Spirit, the thing that always trips me up is self control, or gentleness.  Or, the fruit I desire most right now is kindness, peace or love.

Yes, there will be a war there in the trenches of Christian character development.  And it is there that we especially call on, entrust and rely on His Spirit.  We belong to Him for a reason. If it is not here that He meets us, then where is it?  bewithme.us.   

Indulge me as I "change the Bible" for a second. It may help understand the context of the rainbows and puppies verse of Gal5:22.

• But the fruit of the FIGHT of the Spirit is love
• the fruit of the FIGHT of the Spirit is joy
• the fruit of intense spiritual OPPOSITION is peace
• the fruit of the WAR is patience
• the fruit of the CONFLICT of the Holy Spirit with the flesh is kindness
• the fruit of the FRONT LINE fighting is goodness
• the fruit of the WAR is faithfulness
• the fruit of HAND-To-HAND fighting is gentleness
• the fruit of the FIGHT of the Holy Spirit is self-control

The charge is to be aware of the conflict.  Embrace the fight, that is how the fruit comes. Want the war.  It is a good thing.  Trust the Spirit. Weaponize the Holy Spirit.  Try to Keep Up with the Spirit.  Try to keep up with the podcast by subscribing on your favorite podcast directory such as Google, Spotify, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Overcast, Castbox or even Apple Podcasts. bewithme.us

I had the opportunity to meet the BEST FARMER in Mozambique.  She was universally recognized as such by her peers.  The vote was unanimous.  When I inquired as to why she had the best yielding plot in the nation, she humbly described dragging bags of manure and working the soil long before the sun came up; doing battle with every bug that desired to eat the leaves or fruit (she went through every plant and picked them off by hand all day long), etc. She did battle every hour of every day in her corner of the world.

Here's the big point of her story and our section of Galatians 5:  You don't get the FRUIT without the FIGHT.  Everybody wants the FRUIT of the Spirit.  Who doesn't want love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness and self control?  How do you get it? By magic? Poof?  In the context of the passage, it is by opposition, walking the war,  being against, being kept from doing, and NOT gratifying.  This is what it means to walk by the Spirit; live by the Spirit; and be led but the Spirit.  FIGHT! and then you will get FRUIT! You don't get the FRUIT without the FIGHT.

To hear more about this, LISTEN to the podcast. 7 minutes. To grow, listen again tomorrow, or maybe go backwards a few episodes.  To make it easy to receive, go to the website and sign up for a daily notification. bewithme.us   I know you have a fight.   I'd be honored to be a part of it.

Before faith, there are 15 ½ bad things you will want to do. After faith, there are 15 ½ bad things you will want to do. I lumped them together: Mis-(use your) Zipper; mis worship; mis-relationship; mis-contentment; and mis-conduct.  As if that doesn't cover it all, Paul adds, "and other stuff like this."

At the moment of conversion, God could have made these 15 ½ bad things disappear. POOF! Gone! But no, this list of 15 ½ things still exists for not-yet believers and believers alike.  Why didn't God poof them away?

Like the Ukrainians calling out for the right weaponry to use against the Russians, God wants us to FEEL THE NEED for the right weapon.  But not stopping there, He then GIVES US THE RIGHT WEAPON to walk this war before us. He lets the war continue.  He provides the right weapon:  the indwelling, helping, anti-orphaning, be withing, advantaging, forever, HOLY SPIRIT.  Please subscribe and share and like and support by spreading. bewithme.us

"A horse! A horse! My KINGDOM for a HORSE!" So says the king in battle in Richard III by Shakespeare.  We will say the same today for the SPIRIT.  One difference is that King Richard did not have a horse at hand, but we HAVE the SPIRIT.

We are at war.  Today you will battle.  At least, you SHOULD have battled.  Part of this challenge is to SEE the BATTLE you are in, hopefully before it has passed by. 

We have a precious, valuable SUPPLY.  It is the Spirit.  He is Sufficient and Specific to our need.

My job is to cooperate just a bit.  Walk WITH the Spirit.  Not walk WITHOUT the Spirit or walk AGAINST the Spirit.

Like the king, we are at war and have a great need.  Unlike the king, we have supply.  We have the MOST NEEDFUL THING, the Spirit.  Let's walk like it today. Please share, like, subscribe at bewithme.us