Fame & Glory

“Don’t run after fame and glory for yourself, thinking that such things are the way God keeps score. They aren’t. God doesn’t keep score at all. Such things are not God’s gifts to you. Instead, be generous, loving, gracious, and kind, for it is in these things that God reveals Himself to you, and reveals Himself to others through you.”

Jeremy Myers

Get

Each day our world becomes more and more about getting. Even our Christianese is laced with words like obtain and receive. We do see the occasional act of kindness that amazes people but too often these acts are just giving in order to get something in return. Can’t (shouldn’t or will) we give to give?

365

Today is the one year anniversary of The Better Thing Blog. What an amazing year it’s been. My wife and I were talking the other night and both feel that it has been the sweetest year of our lives. God has been so near and shown us His astonishing love in so many ways.

We want to thank each of you for being a part of what God’s been up to throughout the year. Thank you for reading these posts. Thank you for your kindness and encouragement. Thank you for your support. And thank you for your critique. He has used you to draw us a little closer to Him each day.

The scriptural inspiration for the birth of this blog is the story in Luke ten where Martha is complaining to Jesus that Mary is not doing enough and while Mary is sitting at His feet, Jesus answers Martha, Don’t worry so much, Mary has chosen the better thing. The thing Mary chose was intimacy with The Living God and I hope in some small way you have been heartened to do the same by what’s been shared here.

Being not Doing

Who are you is a much more important question than what do you do. We’re told that love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness and self-control are the evidence we’ll see in those filled with God’s Spirit. Notice this is not a list of grand accomplishments. It’s not a list of tasks to be completed, books to have read or written nor is it an inventory of disciplines to have mastered. It’s about who you are in your heart and is completely reflected in how you treat those around you.

One of the least of these

Scripture tells us that when we show compassion to those around us that are in need or are hurting it’s as if we cared for Jesus Himself. Today will be filled with opportunities for us to love the Lord through the kindness we pour out on others. Let’s be generous, empathetic and patient. Nothing speaks louder than when people see us put aside our needs, wants and agendas to focus on theirs.

The First Commandment

“Be Fruitful”: full of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness and self-control. These are the results of our truly understanding God’s perfect love for us and responding to that love by drawing close to Him.

Self Control

It’s great that with this fruit comes the ability to remove self not just control it. It is the demonstration of all of the fruit listed in the previous ten posts. Another description might be that it is the ability to recognize when we are stepping away from The Lord and making the correction by quickly turning back to Him.

Faithfulness

Full of faith, trusting God with all that we are and all that we have. Knowing that in the big picture, no matter what today may look like, somewhere down the road we will understand and appreciate all that we experienced today.

Gentleness

Mildness might be another way of saying gentleness. This sometimes gets confused with avoidance or being the kind of person that stays away from difficulty. That’s not what this fruit is about. The confidence that comes from the Spirit within us allows us to confront the things that need to be addressed but we are able to do that with gentleness, being considerate of others.

Goodness

I like to think the explanation of this fruit is like the foods we say are full of goodness, in other words, of great benefit. People filled with the Spirit and thus the fruit of goodness, are beneficial to those around them.