How does the Spirit work in the world?
The short answer is: you.
The Holy Spirit works in the world through you.
What does that actually look like? For starters, you look different than you used to. I don’t mean you part your hair differently or somehow appear more spiritual. I mean the outcomes of your life have changed. The Spirit transforms us into people who bear different fruit than before.
Galatians 5 gives us a list of what that fruit looks like: “But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things.” (NLT)
As tame as this list might sound to those of us who’ve heard it before, we need to remind ourselves, on our own we are pretty bad at this stuff. These qualities are not natural. Peace and patience? Not easy. Faithfulness? Not our default setting. And don’t even get me started on self-control.
Let’s zoom in on just one of these: kindness.
We live in a harsh world. Social media is probably the most obvious example. The sharpest comment gets the likes. The mean post gets shared. The angry rant gets retweeted. But that is not who we are meant to be.
We are called to live with kindness. And not some fake, pasted-on version of it. Real kindness. The kind that only comes from the Spirit living in us. We don’t produce kindness by willpower. We bear kindness as fruit, because the Spirit is alive and active in us.
That means we have to ask ourselves, Am I kind? That is not an easy question. Especially if you are a leader. Even more so if you are in the ministry. Title, platform, and spiritual gifting don’t excuse unkindness. Let me put it plainly in a phrase I’ve told myself many times int he past: Hey Dave, remember that being a jerk is not a spiritual gift!
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