I cannot say how blessed and humbled I was to find out that this blog was nominated for the Internet Cafe Devotions: Top 100 Christian Women's Blogs of 2008.
notes of jubilee was one of the top ten blogs nominated under the Cup Of The Day Blog. (You can find the button for The Internet Cafe, a sister site of CWO, on the sidebar. Click over, the site is such an encouragement.)
I have no idea who nominated my blog for this honor, but would like to say a big thank you. May the Lord Jesus Christ receive the honor and glory. It is Him that I gladly serve and surrender to.
And on that note, our pastor talked about surrendering today in church. What a blessing it was to just be in church again. Like a deep cleansing breath.
Since our move we hadn't found another church to attend and I was missing the fellowship with other Christians. We made the long trek to a church we attended year or so ago before The Calm One's deployment. And it was good to see so many familiar, loving faces. Because of the commute, I am unsure whether we'll be able to continue attending this church or not, but it was good to be back, if only for a short while.
At any rate, in the midst of his sermon on surrendering, someone in the congregation gave an illustration of the fruit of the Spirit. They mentioned that they'd always wondered why "fruit" in Galatians five was singular when the same verse goes on to mention love, joy peace, long suffering, gentleness, goodness. . . Honestly, I had not thought of that before and this person had my full attention. I've gone twenty nine years (I was saved at age eight) assuming that there are many fruits of the Spirit. But the Bible says: "The fruit of the Spirit is . . ."
22But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,
They went onto say that perhaps the fruit of Spirit is a singular kind of fruit, like an orange, and the love, joy, peace, etc. are the attributes or segments, if you will, of the fruit all held together with God's Love.
Now, I am still mulling this over in my mind and processing, trying to see how this fits with the theology I've grown up with. And, more importantly, what I know of the Bible. But it does make sense in that we need all of those attributes in order to bear fruit.
And bearing fruit is, at least in part, what Christians are called to do. Because if we are bearing fruit, then we will be recognized as Christ's followers. And admittedly, that is truly the important part. Whether you believe that fruit of the Spirit is plural or singular, is not a deal-breaker for getting into Heaven. It's just a new twist to a concept that I hadn't considered before.
Anyone else want to weigh in on this?
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February 1, 2009 2:38 PM
Congrats sweetie, well deserved.