Don’t Feel Loving, Free, and Fruitful?

When we don’t Feel Loving, Free, and Fruitful

The love, freedom, and fruitfulness that results from Christ in us can be easy to forget when we're feeling badly about ourselves.

In Philippians 1:9-11 Paul prayed with great insight about this.

He prayed that their love would abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight.

I find that fascinating. It's apparently an abundance of love that allows our knowledge and insight to grow deeper.

He goes on to explain that deeper knowledge and insight give us the ability to discern what is best and to be pure and blameless.

We _are_ absolutely pure and blameless at the core of our being, of course.

What is in view here is how we can more often make godly choices in the face of temptation and the desires of the flesh.

Then He directly tackles the issue of fruit. He links this to the effects of abundant love and then tells us how we can be sure we're filled with good fruit.

The fruit of righteousness, Paul says, comes through Jesus Christ.

Isn't that a big relief? It's not up to you to produce fruit; it's up to Christ in us--and we're _full_ of Him!

Do you see it? That's why it's to the glory and praise of God!

God gets the glory and praise because He does the work of fruit production. All we do is bear it, and that's easy because we are full of it.

So we can safely ignore that old serpent when he calls our fruit into question.

That's the way of grace. Easy yokes and light burdens.