This is a prose I wrote for one of my classes a few years back.. she asked us to 'flow' and just write down water came to mind as an asignment -- mine seemed to be very logical, but it's just because I was on my soap box.
The fruits of the spirit are love, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness and self-control. Jesus said that we will be known by our fruits. As I look at this list were not known by these at all. Christians try to make themselves known by their boundaries they set up. They decide theyre not going to cuss, they wont drink alcohol, they wont do this or do that. Then when they step over those boundaries they feel guilty. It seems to me that anybody can set up boundaries; Christian or not. But NOT doing something is not PRODUCING fruit. Producing fruit is DOING something. The essence of what Christianity is, is love, and thats they one thing were not doing. Instead were steadily judging people if they say **** instead of shoot, damn instead of dang. If anybody goes outside of the normal boundaries of the church people seem to close their mind to the possibility that they may be right. Im amazed that we cant learn from the past, when our churches were full of slave owners, and they felt it was all completely justified. Even the pastors thought they were doing right. In 50 years are we going to look back and say, man we didnt have it together at all? Because we dont! Pride is the origin of every sin we commit. And I look at many of the leaders of our church and they have just as much pride as the Pharisees had in Jesus time. Every time Ive found somebody that completely embodies the verse that says, if a man asks for your coat, give him your shirt as well. Other Christians criticize him because they say, that verse doesnt imply you should be taken advantage of. And thats ********. We all had the what would Jesus do bracelets on 5 years ago. So what did HE do? He was taken advantage of to the extreme when he was crucified. And his response? It was silence in court as if to give permission. He said if a man asks you to walk a mile with him, walk with him 2. The Pharisees wanted to destroy his credibility by making him face false accusations. So he walked with them 2 miles. But what do WE do as Christians? We pass stranded people in cars every day on the freeway without any guilty conscious. Or we pray for them as we drive by. How can we honestly pray for some one if were not willing to get involved? I dont understand how anybody can see that as sincere. But those things dont bother us. We would rather fill our minds with Christian arguments like if we were predestined to be Christians or if we had a choice. Or if holy water is really different from normal water. And we all talk about things that have no meaning like sports, or TV shows, or any other type of entertainment. What comes out of our mouths is directly how we begin to think. When we fill our conversations with useless things our minds become useless instruments. Its like the verse in that song that says, our childrens minds are over entertained and under challenged. **** it being our children. America spends SO much money and time on entertaining themselves. What would it be like here if we spent all that time helping homeless people, or spending that time at nursing homes, or even spending that time with our own children? But this is just all talk and all theoretical like we all seem to be doing day after day. Analyzing one thing or another. I think it was put best by R. Kelly when he said, I dont want to talk about lovin you. I want to be about lovin you. Hes obviously talking about a woman, and Im talking about life. When are we going to stop talking and start doing? Its like in Job where God tells Satan that Job is a righteous man, and the first few chapters are what happened to Job, then the next chapter is Jobs friend saying why this happened to Job, then Job responds, then another of his friends talk. Then Job responds again, then another one of his friends. Then the next few chapters is just Job expressing all the stuff he thinks about God. Now God responds to Job, whom he called righteous and says, Who do you think you are to think you know who I am? And then Job puts his hand over his mouth and refuses to speak. And even after teaching or learning this lesson I see Christians two minutes later saying, what do you think Gods view is on this I dont think were ever learning anything! All we seem to be doing is talking.
The fruits of the spirit are love, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness and self-control. Jesus said that we will be known by our fruits. As I look at this list were not known by these at all. Christians try to make themselves known by their boundaries they set up. They decide theyre not going to cuss, they wont drink alcohol, they wont do this or do that. Then when they step over those boundaries they feel guilty. It seems to me that anybody can set up boundaries; Christian or not. But NOT doing something is not PRODUCING fruit. Producing fruit is DOING something. The essence of what Christianity is, is love, and thats they one thing were not doing. Instead were steadily judging people if they say **** instead of shoot, damn instead of dang. If anybody goes outside of the normal boundaries of the church people seem to close their mind to the possibility that they may be right. Im amazed that we cant learn from the past, when our churches were full of slave owners, and they felt it was all completely justified. Even the pastors thought they were doing right. In 50 years are we going to look back and say, man we didnt have it together at all? Because we dont! Pride is the origin of every sin we commit. And I look at many of the leaders of our church and they have just as much pride as the Pharisees had in Jesus time. Every time Ive found somebody that completely embodies the verse that says, if a man asks for your coat, give him your shirt as well. Other Christians criticize him because they say, that verse doesnt imply you should be taken advantage of. And thats ********. We all had the what would Jesus do bracelets on 5 years ago. So what did HE do? He was taken advantage of to the extreme when he was crucified. And his response? It was silence in court as if to give permission. He said if a man asks you to walk a mile with him, walk with him 2. The Pharisees wanted to destroy his credibility by making him face false accusations. So he walked with them 2 miles. But what do WE do as Christians? We pass stranded people in cars every day on the freeway without any guilty conscious. Or we pray for them as we drive by. How can we honestly pray for some one if were not willing to get involved? I dont understand how anybody can see that as sincere. But those things dont bother us. We would rather fill our minds with Christian arguments like if we were predestined to be Christians or if we had a choice. Or if holy water is really different from normal water. And we all talk about things that have no meaning like sports, or TV shows, or any other type of entertainment. What comes out of our mouths is directly how we begin to think. When we fill our conversations with useless things our minds become useless instruments. Its like the verse in that song that says, our childrens minds are over entertained and under challenged. **** it being our children. America spends SO much money and time on entertaining themselves. What would it be like here if we spent all that time helping homeless people, or spending that time at nursing homes, or even spending that time with our own children? But this is just all talk and all theoretical like we all seem to be doing day after day. Analyzing one thing or another. I think it was put best by R. Kelly when he said, I dont want to talk about lovin you. I want to be about lovin you. Hes obviously talking about a woman, and Im talking about life. When are we going to stop talking and start doing? Its like in Job where God tells Satan that Job is a righteous man, and the first few chapters are what happened to Job, then the next chapter is Jobs friend saying why this happened to Job, then Job responds, then another of his friends talk. Then Job responds again, then another one of his friends. Then the next few chapters is just Job expressing all the stuff he thinks about God. Now God responds to Job, whom he called righteous and says, Who do you think you are to think you know who I am? And then Job puts his hand over his mouth and refuses to speak. And even after teaching or learning this lesson I see Christians two minutes later saying, what do you think Gods view is on this I dont think were ever learning anything! All we seem to be doing is talking.
True.
