Sharing the Wealth

Today I went to a women's conference at the church I've been attending the last several months. There were some really good thing that were said by the speaker, and a few of them stuck out to me, so I'm sharing the wealth. :)

She talked about the fruit of the Spirit. She reminded us that, in order to reap a fruitful harvest, we have to have a seed. And in order to have a seed, something had to die. You can't get at a seed unless the fruit that carried it was plucked and cut open. Jen (the speaker) said that our producing the fruit of the Spirit requires that we die to self. This makes a lot of sense, doesn't it? I can't grow in self-control unless I deny myself what I want. I can't grow in gentleness unless I squash (with God's help) the part of my personality that can be a bully in pursuit of my own agenda.

Lesson #1 - To produce the fruit of the spirit, I have to die to myself.

Another point she made continued on in the theme of fruit-production. What a breath of fresh air to have a speaker at a women's conference remind the audience that the command to be fruitful and multiply is not just about making babies! As she pointed out, this leaves the single woman, or the childless woman, or the woman not called to have children out in the cold (I was really excited she mentioned the last group as I think Christian women sometimes feel really baffled that a women might be married but choose not to have children). However, that doesn't absolve these women - or the men who can't birth a child - from being fruitful. She reminded us that intentional godliness in any of our key relationships can be a way to be fruitful and multiply.

Lesson #2 - We can be fruitful and multiply when we are intentionally showing Christ in any key relationship.

A third point she made related to the idea of change. Jen challenged us that sometimes people feel entitled to stay the way we are. When someone points out an area of sin, we say, "Well, that's the way I am. Take it or leave it." Jen reminded us that the only person who can't change is God, and when we believe we can't change, we tell a lie to ourselves about God and about us.

Lesson #3 - Change is our greatest hope; that's what the Gospel is about. 

Jen reminded us that we need to rule over and subdue our sin nature. This isn't easy for us; she said, "We don't turn from a sin that we do not hate." Powerful words! If we think back onto sins that we no longer commit, it's because we found a better and greater love. Jen said we spend a lot of time being line-walkers. We see the line of bad behavior, like don't gossip, for example, and we figure out how close we can get to the line without crossing it. That's not us hating our sin. When we ask ourselves how close we can get without crossing the line, there's already a problem. The issue is the motive of our heart. We are commanded to flee from sin. Just running away from sin isn't enough; that's us trying to conquer our sin on our own strength.

Lesson #4 - We need to flee from sin to righteousness.  

Last but not least, Jen reminded us that we often get really focused on ourselves and all the things we can do in our own strength. We see ourselves as the centers of our own little universes, which shows pretty quickly that our attention is on us, not on Him. We don't follow His example to rest. She reminded us that Matthew 11:28 isn't just about physical rest for people who are stressed out; it's a "soul Sabbath" for us that can only be found in Christ. It's saying that there is no more battle against being good enough or smart enough or anything else enough. We aren't taking a soul Sabbath when we think our own lives (or the lives of others who know us) need us or else they will fall apart. This is a lesson that's really good for me to keep in mind due to my "responsibility trigger." I often find myself feeling like I can, or need to, or should, do X, Y, or Z, which is an over-inflated sense of self and distracts me from recognizing that it's God who keeps the world on spinning, not me.

Lesson #5 - On a very regular basis, God invites us to sit still and watch how everything keeps going without us because it is HE who creates and HE who sustains. It's about Him, not us.