I think I talked my best friends ear off as we walked circles around the park on Thursday night! You see I have been struck by this simple, eye opening revelation that the answer for every problem, issue, frustration, lack of creativity, confusion, everything is a true deep relationship with Jesus!
Now before you stop reading at what you think is an off the cuff church answer, think about it! The problem is that most of us know so much about God that we think that we know Him. I know a lot about President Obama from what I read in magazines and newspapers, watch on TV and hear people say…but I don’t know him. I don’t have a real relationship with the President so that I know what he is thinking and why he does the things he does, I don’t know him on a personal level, I know about him.
As Christians, and even pastors I think we sometimes get so caught up in what we know about God…that we forget to take the time to know HIM! To think like he thinks, act like he would act, respond how he would respond, ect… Or we get so irritated with the frustrations of life that we don’t want to know God because then we would have to act like Him, so we distract ourselves with “ourselves.”
I have many close friends walking through the fire of life right now…and I know the burn because I have been there on many occasions. But after coming out…I can see that the only way I made it through is by the grace and hand of God. Joyce Meyer spoke a message that I think tells us how to know if we really know God! If the fruit of God is evident in our life.
She shared about the fruit of the spirit and how we all have it but sometimes it needs to be developed in us. Just like our old school cameras with “actual film.” You could take a picture of someone or something and “have” the picture but you could not develop the picture to show it to people without the dark room. Sometimes God allows us to walk through the dark places in life so that when we come out on the other side…His fruit will be evident in our lives. However, we have to be willing to walk through the process and give it the right amount of time.
Do you have a real, true, deep relationship with Jesus Christ? If so are his fruits evident in your life? Peace (no matter what you face), Joy (true happiness and contentment) Love (for ourselves and the people around us), Patience ( strength to endure), Kindness (treating people the way Jesus would), Goodness, Gentleness and Self Control!
