By Joanna Kimbrel
Staff Writer for The Daily Grace Co.
You scroll through your Instagram feed and see a bright white kitchen, sparkling in the ethereal glow of natural light pouring through the huge window over the farmhouse sink. One child sits on the floor playing with wooden toy cars, while the other sits in her perfectly clean high chair happily munching on raw veggies. …
By Brandy Marsh
Originally Published in Be Still Magazine, Issue 4
Spring is upon us and what better time than that of sunshine and new growth to take a step back and check our gardens. Not our real gardens. Personally, if you were to come to my house to check my garden, there would not be one. If there were one, there is a pretty good chance that nothing would be alive. God did not give me a green thumb, and I’m okay with that. I can take care of people — husband, kids, family, friends, co-workers — but for some reason watering a plant just does not come naturally for me. So lucky for me, we are not checking our real gardens. Instead, we should be taking a look at the seed that was planted when we accepted Christ into our hearts.
So picture this: you gave your life to Christ, God sent you the gift of the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit brought a seed to plant inside of you called the Fruit of the Spirit. Galatians 5:22-23 tells us “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.”
God gave us a list of nine fruits that would be produced in our lives, with help from the Holy Spirit, to reflect a life with Him. As you read the individual “fruits,” picture each one as a seed, or a sprout, or a blooming flower in your own garden.
Love: Are you giving love to people whether they deserve it or not?…
By Stefanie Boyles
Staff Writer for The Daily Grace Co.
I don’t like confrontation. I don’t like tension. I don’t like resistance. I don’t like hard. Instead, I prefer harmony. I prefer compliance. I prefer the path of least resistance. I prefer easy. Yet, again and again, I’m confronted with the truth that this life on the narrow path is a fight. The battle is won, yes. Christ conquered the grave, and we can absolutely find hope in His life, death, and resurrection. But the Christian life is an active fight – not against anyone but against sin. Though Christ has paid the penalty of our sins, the presence of sin remains in our lives. So we have to ask ourselves: how are we fighting the sin in our lives today?
Each of us has different sin patterns that we can identify in our lives. While one person may wrestle with lust, another person may wrestle with unrighteous anger.…