Are You A Bad Christian?
AI Generated Transcript (I only fixed the mis-spelling of my name and added one extra paragraph break - I left the rest of the mess just the way AI delivered it haha):
Are you a bad Christian? Welcome to Jon's Voice Notes, where I, Jon, start with a topic and go stream of consciousness without planning to wherever that conversation leads. It's a warm day in, I mean, it's pretty much summer now. It's a couple days here until astronomical summer, but we are definitely in meteorological summer. It's warming up. It's still cool in the shade. It's morning time. I'm at a park. I grew up in this town, but I haven't been to this park hardly ever. Probably wasn't here when I was a kid. But it's a nice, refreshing park, and I went on a nice, refreshing walk along the mighty Kishwaukee River. But let's get to it. Are you a bad Christian? The actual topic is the fruit of the Spirit. Are you a Christian? Do you believe in Jesus? Have you given your life over to him? Because if you have, the Holy Spirit is in you. And if the Holy Spirit is in you, you know what he is doing. He is growing the fruit of the Spirit inside you: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, self-control.
I like to read through those and confess them over my life because I am filled with the Holy Spirit. Therefore, no matter what I think, see, or feel, or even if I misbehave and think I'm being a bad Christian, somewhere in there, these things are being worked out by God. I like to add, after goodness, I like to say generosity. Kind of add that in, in parentheses. How do you add parentheses when you're reading it? I just change my tone of voice a little because I know that word isn't there. For faithfulness, I like to add in integrity, honesty, reliability. For self-control, I like to mention discipline and focus. I confess these regularly over my life, saying that, God, your spirit is in me. Therefore, these things are working in my life. They're there. So you have more power inside you for your character than you know.
Depending on what Christian world version you come from, maybe the emphasis on the Holy Spirit that you grew up with or were brought into the kingdom with is about the power and ministry and speaking in tongues or evangelism. That is the Holy Spirit all the way. I'm all for it. But there's a whole other side where the Holy Spirit is working in you. He's working in you both to will and to do, it says somewhere in Philippians. He's not only working in you to do it, he's working in you to will it. He's changing you. So you can't just strive to, you know, kind of grunt out the fruit of the Spirit or beat yourself up when you don't see it or say, I'm a bad Christian. If you have faith, if you believe in Jesus and your eyes are on him, it's just going to work.
And I believe there's a place for deliberately pursuing through gratitude; it's a great practice on these things. Making loving choices whenever you can. You know, doing acts of integrity or reliability when it hurts to keep your word, things like that. You keep doing those things, and that is like the Holy Spirit working out the fruit of the Spirit inside you. I have found that there's an abundance of peace and joy from the fruit of the Holy Spirit. It's kind of been a surprise in my life. More peace and joy than I thought I would experience. Not that I'm always in this state of bliss, nothing like that, but just there's an underlying bubbling peace, confidence, trust, faith, childlikeness, and joy. Joy at who God is and what he has done and looking at his creation and looking at people and the amazing things he does through people.
Human beings are amazing, especially when they're getting into their walk with God. They're getting into what God wants them to do and be. Human beings can be amazing things to glorify him when you see it. When you see God using human beings this way, glorify, praise, honor him. But really, if you are a bad Christian, maybe it's time to stop confessing that. You need to confess your sins when you know what they are, but you don't want to dwell in them, not even when you're struggling to overcome them. Also, in addition to that, confess the things that are true, even if you don't see them yet. If you have faith in Christ and the Holy Spirit is in you, these fruits are growing somewhere. And, you know, work with God to let them manifest in your life.
I know that might sound kind of strange because you can't do it by works, right? But I don't know how to say it. There's like a, in one way, we're like a plant, a tree planted by streams of water that bears fruit in season. Another way, we're like a moth or a butterfly in a cocoon, struggling, wrestling against the old to become the new. Try and figure out, am I striving and wrestling to overcome in my life and become more like Christ? Or am I just receiving it? Well, yeah. They sound like they're contradictory, but they're kind of like the way God does it in us is through the struggle. That he puts the struggle in us. He puts it in us to do the struggle.
So there is a struggle. There is a fight. And it's worth fighting to see the Holy Spirit manifest in your life, not only in power for ministry, power for prophesying, and you know, prophetic, but power for becoming a person that bears the fruit of the Spirit. And when people see you, they smell the fruit; they smell the sweet scent of Jesus. I definitely, that is not always what people experience around me. They might experience my anger or my sin or my frustration or my impatience or whatever it is. You know, my insensitivity, my cluelessness. Sometimes I'm clueless of what's going on around me. But whatever it is, he's worth pursuing.
And put your faith and trust and maybe read it out loud and confess it out loud. The fruit of the Spirit. If you don't know where it is, search for it on Google. Google knows where it is. Find it in your Bible and read it and confess it out. But that's what I'm contemplating today. So I hope that blesses you and encourages you. Back to a more normal length here. Thank you for listening.
This is Jon and Jon's Voice Notes signing off.