Eat Your Fruits and Vegetables

Joy

Where does my source of joy come from?

That's an easy answer: the Lord! Duh, right?

Maybe it's an easy answer but why do I still feel like I lack joy?

Just ask ... 

Holy Spirit I ask for joy, please.

Joy is yours for the having, it is a fruit of the Spirit, joy as with all the fruits - love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control - all are available to us through the Holy Spirit.

As we abide in Christ He abides in us, and the fruit of the Holy Spirit will be produced in us...

So I gots to be abiding in Christ, by praying, listening, reading the Word, praising, serving, and spending time with other believers...

It's simple. but not easy, this is where spiritual disciplines come in... 

but if you are like me you just want to cruse along, not having to put any effort or work into following Jesus, but I have found that - if I want to grow, if I want to thrive, if I want to live the abundant life, if I want to have love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control - in my life I need to make a discipline of praying, listening, reading the Word, praising, serving, and spending time with other believers... 

this means getting up a earlier then I might want to, this means turning off the T.V., this means going to church to meet with my brothers and sisters even when I don't feel like it... 

I know none of us want to hear this, right? Come on Maria, we are saved by grace, we don't have to do anything we don't want to do...

Yes you are right, we are saved by grace, and it is by grace that we participate in the spiritual disciplines that through the power of the Holy Spirit transform us from holy to holy! It's common sense, we all know it to be true, if you are training for a marathon you need to be physically discipline, if you are in a relationship you need to put work into it by spending time with the person... right?

I'm not saying anything new, any of us who have been around "the Christian block" a couple times have heard this all before, but we sometimes need (OK I need) a reminder... no?

I'm preaching to myself, my prayer is that some of you out there struggle with some of the same things I do and that Jesus will use these words to bless you.

Some fruit for your meditation:

“I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit. You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you.Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire and they are burned. If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples. Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love. If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love. These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full.

John 15: 1-11