Café Menu for Monday, September 6, 2010
Today’s Special is: The Fruit of the Spirit is Kindness
Carefully prepared just for you by your friend, Kathy
Main Ingredient – John 15:4 “Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; It must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.
Entrée – The “fruits” of the Spirit as listed in Galatians 5:22-23 are the character traits of Christ. The more we read the Bible and learn about the character of God, the more we understand these traits and then we can begin to emulate them. We cannot possess these traits entirely on our own, we need Christ’s help. If we want these fruits to grow in us, we must abide in Him. Abiding in Him means spending time with Him, getting to know who He is and what His character is like. As we abide in Him we worship Him and love Him with all our hearts, minds and souls and invite His spirit to fill us overflowing from the inside. And then, as we abide in Him, the fruits of the Spirit begin to grow within us.
I saw this very thing take place this summer. My son was involved in a musical at church. Each Wednesday they would have all day practices in which they showed up at 8am, practiced all morning, had lunch and a fun activity and returned for dinner and several more hours of practicing. These children spent the summer getting to know God and who He was through this play. They worshipped Him all summer long through the songs that they were learning. They had a CD with the songs on it that they listened to countless times throughout the summer. At show time I watched as these young people stood on stage, with hundreds of people in the audience, and sang to no one else but God, worshipping Him with all their hearts and all their minds and all their souls.
All summer long as a behavior tool and incentive to do well, the children received “Choir bucks” for doing good things as well as the things that were required of them, like showing up for practice, listening to their CD and just good behavior in general. After the show they had a “cast party” and they were allowed to spend their Choir bucks on real toys. It was on this night that I witnessed the fruit of the Spirit -kindness from these children who had spent the entire summer getting to know and then worshipping GOD.
One boy spent all of his choir bucks on an auction. He had purchased an I-Pod shuffle for his mother because he knew she wanted one. Because he spent all of his money on his mother, several children came to him and gave him some of their money.
Two other little boys had not finished out the play and therefore had no money to spend. They sat in the corner watching the excitement as the other kids bought stuff from the store. One boy who saw this went up to the table an bought each of them not a $1 item or $5 item but two $40 items and rushed over to deliver them to the boys. Another little girl had already spent all her money when she noticed the boys so she dug down into her bag of stuff that she had purchased for herself and gave them each something from her treasure.
One little 6 year old girl who I helped count her money excitedly bought herself a Barbie doll and then immediately went in search of a kitty for her sister. Countless children bought items for their siblings and even for their parents. And these are only the stories that I know of. I believe there were many, many more acts of kindness which took place that night. It was clear to me that the character of Christ had been successfully planted into these children who gave up one Wednesday of each of eight weeks of their summer vacation to get to know and worship Christ and to share his love with over 1900 people who would come to see them dance and sing up on that stage.
Take Out: Heavenly Father, thank you for our precious children who are so innocent and emulate your character sometimes better than we adults do. Thank you for showing up and filling our children’s hearts with the fruits of Your Spirit. Lord we pray that each person who reads this will come to know you better and abide in you and your love. And then as a result we pray that the fruits of your spirit will fill our hearts overflowing so that they will be showered on others who might then come to know you as well. In the name of your precious son, Jesus Christ, we pray. AMEN.
Dessert: Read about the parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10:25-37 and meditate on this act of kindness.
© 2010 by Kathy Sweeny. All rights reserved.
