Changed Lives Change Lives

 


We can stand on the street corner and preach the evils of the flesh or the value of heaven, but it will not win souls to Christ. People need to see changed lives and the fruit of the Spirit at work in us. The world is watching, what do they see in us?

Thankfully, it is not up to us alone to be holy and fruitful, but it does take our cooperation. In John 15:5 Jesus says, “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.” So we are responsible for remaining in Jesus, for abiding in Him. If we do this, then we will bear fruit like love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, and self control (Gal 5:22-23).

When non-Christians see these fruits in our lives, they are drawn to desire their giver, Jesus. We have the opportunity to point people to God and give Him glory.

Sadly, as I said, this does take our cooperation. We can choose instead to live a worldly life and gratify the flesh rather than glorifying God. When we do this, we don’t only hurt ourselves, but we ruin our witness and the opportunity that others would have had to see Christ in us.

Here’s the Thing: God doesn’t force us to make the right choices, but He will empower us to do it if we ask Him for help and lean into Him for guidance. God knows we can’t do this on our own and He doesn’t ask us to. He’s here for us every step of the way.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

At least it's not bad news

Image
  Radical tumor removal is not always possible because of the critical brainstem or diencephalic locations of some tumors. Tumor progression and eventual death are likely in such patients. Stereotactic radiosurgery for pilocytic astrocytomas part 1: outcomes in adult patients Kano et. al.  So my posts are usually preceded by a scripture verse, often an encouraging one. Today I needed to give you an insight into what I've been experiencing. From the time I was diagnosed with a brain tumor, about a year and a half ago, I was reassured that it was a "WHO grade 1 benign" tumor. I, mistakenly, took this to mean that it wasn't a big deal. Even when I was told in June that it had grown "slightly," I thought that meant they'd zap it with radiation and that'd be the end of it. Guess what, I was wrong. When my June MRI revealed growth, I was referred to the Tumor Center for treatment. Fearing a long, drawn-out process, I was relieved when they scheduled all my...
Read more

The Next Crazy Thing

Image
Buckle in! This is a processing post so it is likely to be long and wordy and emotional and probably flawed in many ways. I thank you for your patience and anyone who makes it to the end gets bonus points in my book 😏.  Let's start with the info. I've been having progressively more intense, more frequent, and longer lasting migraines. Since my eye surgery in May, I've also been experiencing a great deal of nausea, almost daily. Sometimes meds help (with either), sometimes they don't. In addition, since the eye surgery, my double vision has intensified. My depth perception is shot, I'm regularly missing things I grab for, mistaking curbs for cracks in the sidewalk, bumping into walls or counters. Those are the three things that neurosurgery told us to watch for with regards to the shunt functioning properly: headaches, nausea, and vision changes. Now the vision changes were probably because of the surgery and the nausea was probably  because of the migraines, but th...
Read more

When "Wait and See" Wouldn't Sound so Bad

Image
    Ten days after I received the call letting me know that they found something on the MRI I was sitting in the office of a Neurosurgeon.  I have no doubt that God orchestrated the circumstances that had brought me there, including a friend who is also dealing with a brain tumor recommending this clinic. But how could any of this be real? Only a couple of people knew what was going on, but there wasn't much to know before this appointment. All we had were a few key phrases on the MRI Study Result and our dear friend, Dr. Google.  I went into the appointment with the impression that the doctor would either recommend watching and waiting, doing another MRI in six months and seeing if anything changed, or taking it out right away.  In previous encounters where the option was to wait or do something I have vastly preferred doing something, but this time it was different. I had read about the potential complications of surgery and I was scared.  Not to men...
Read more