Good day everyone, I am truly Blessed to live in a time where I'm graced with the opportunity to reach more people than anytime in the history of the world. The internet and social media can sometimes be a despicable place, but tens if not hundreds of millions use search engines and even AI daily to find Faith based answers to questions related to their journey.

Today I want to talk about the Fruits of The Spirit in the context of human pride inspired works versus works resulting from a divinely inspired and loving heart, with a goal of planting seeds in your heart and a sense of wonder about God's plan for your life. Ideally the end result would be to share with your family, friends, and loved ones new concepts and ideas about what God actually wants us to do with His precious time.

As most of us know from Galatians 5: 22-23 The Fruits of The Spirit are:

Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness, and Self-Control.

At the moment of salvation, through God's effectual calling of your heart and his irresistible Grace, you were transformed. God's Grace prevails over a saved person's resistance to it and you were permanently indwelt with these divine qualities. These fruits are some of the evidence of true salvation and cannot be faked by any amount of human effort.

One of the many things I wrestle with on a daily basis is "Am I doing what God wants me to do with His time?" I always feel like I need to be "doing something" and I pray about it often. I ask God to please show me what he wants me to do, but more often than not I'm met with the "divine silence" many of us are familiar with, and I go and chase after a wind trying to please God from my own motivations instead of doing something because my heart craves it. In my walk of Faith over the years I have crashed and burned so many times I have lost count, simply because I was doing works out of pride instead of producing fruit out of Grace.

Waiting on God is a refining process. We want to get involved. We want to "do stuff" or "serve", but we end up doing things that are simply human works and not eternally fulfilling. The fruit of patience is very real. As a Believer, God is constantly molding you and shaping you to be exactly who He needs you to be, and it may not even be something He is preparing you for in this age, which is something we have to consider. The coming Kingdom and Eternal Ages will be saturated with opportunities and God needs you to be ready. Many Christians live out their lives in the flesh being patient. It's hard to comprehend patience as being fruitfulness. Please do not confuse Church Age patience fruit with "actionable Faith". Hebrews 11 is an excellent essay about active Faith. Twenty one examples are given, and that does not even include The Prophets. The key passage is verse thirteen.

Hebrews 11:13 - "All these people were still living by Faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting they were foreigners and strangers on Earth."

This is an astounding piece of God's inspired Word. It's so important we endure trust in God's purposes, even when His purposes for us could unfold far beyond our human timeline. Notice it says "all these people". That list is full of the heavy hitters of The Old Testament. All of them did not receive the things promised.

In the modern Church Age we are bombarded from every direction, especially in organized corporate religion, to get involved, participate, serve, lead, join, travel on missions, give, etc. I think these are all outstanding ideas for the divinely inspired heart, however if you are doing these things for human recognition and personal pride that is an extremely slippery slope. Been there done that.

I remember when I was first given the opportunity to teach at my church. I was never comfortable with public speaking but the first class went very well and it puffed me up with pride and overconfidence. I applied for an opening they had as a mentor and things didn't work out the way I expected. Even though the men that interviewed me were excited to move forward with me in that position, it never happened, and I feel certain God had a hand in putting a stop to it because of pride issues and a sin problem concerning my dating life that was not dealt with.

This is a personal example of how we need to carefully pray and meditate about what God wants us to do and not just do something because of religious peer pressure and personal desires. One of the modern tensions of Christian theology is attempting to spiritually discern the difference between human urgency and God's eternal timetable. It's called Faith for a reason. A lot of people get turned off and dejected by the worldly pressures of corporate religion and move on to flying solo. Flying solo into God's winds.

One of the main ways I overcome much of my human pride is writing here under an anonymous name. This way I have an opportunity to reach people and hopefully stir something in their hearts with what God has asked me to write about. The only "brand" I'm trying to build is the eternal brand of Jesus Christ. I'm not doing this to be a personality or an influencer. I am not trying to click and view harvest. God already predestined who on Earth he wants these messages to reach, even before time began.

In closing I would like for everyone who finds this piece of writing to reach out to someone you know in your life who seems overwhelmed by the daily stress of life, and may have gotten lost in their daily walk of faith. Just let them know that God loves them more than they can possibly comprehend with their human mind, and his plan for their soul may not necessarily include the years of their life in the flesh. Developing an eternal view of our existence seems contrary to whatever is wound into our DNA strands about making our flesh survive as long as possible. It's an interesting paradox..