Chapter 21
HIS VIRTUES FOR YOUR BROKENNESS
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.
GALATIANS 5:22-23
200 A New Love DNA
Dear Bill,
I’ve been painfully sad since I broke our engagement. Please forgive me. May I come back? I love you more than I can say!
Rhonda
PS Congratulations on winning the Powerball jackpot!
God loves you because of who He is, not who you are or what He can get from you. You easily overestimate how loving you are.
You’re like a guy who sees a better-looking person in the mirror than anyone else sees that day! God chooses to love you—warts, pimples, unpleasant habits, and all.
Love is more a choice than a feeling. You choose to love God, your neighbor, and other believers. How do you move from choosing to love to cruising in love?
Let’s consider the first of five ways to grow in love. God designed you to channel His love rather than generate your own.
Human love is like swamp water. It smells like rotten eggs. Your motivations are often self-serving (See Rhonda above!).
God’s love is like pure, sparkling spring water. Better ingredients, better love, Abba Father!
“Dear friends, Let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God” (1 John 4:7 NIV).
When you’re born again, you receive Jesus’ love DNA. You’re born again to love!
Jesus continually strengthens you to love God, your neighbors, and other believers (Philippians 4:13). The result of the Holy Spirit’s control is love that looks like rivers of living water flowing from you (John 7:38)!
How has Jesus’ love DNA made a difference in your life? Read 2 Tim 4.
201 Love on a Tightrope
More than 25 years ago, two of my brothers and I went canoeing on a creek. Two of us sat in the red Coleman canoe. The third climbed aboard without centering his weight.
In a split second, my twin brother and I flipped from breathing air to blowing bubbles in the water under the canoe. Love, like a canoe, or a tightrope walk, requires balance.
Jesus replied: "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'” (Matthew 22:37–39 NIV).
The tightrope walk of love balances loving God, other believers, and unbelieving neighbors in need. For me, loving unbelieving “neighbors” must be a higher priority. I’m trying to be more intentional in that area.
Another unbalancing force is centering your life on someone or something other than God. Idolatry makes a God-substitute life’s tightrope and defining passion.
I’ve thought often about fishing. I’m known for it. I’ve spent considerable money on it. I’ve given it more attention than it deserves.
I’m slowly learning that fishing might make a meal but not a life. God will give you the grace to keep your life centered on Him as your defining passion (1 Corinthians 10:13–14).
I suggest a healthy balance reveals itself at the end of every day. It exists when you can specifically describe how you loved God. How you helped another believer. How you served someone in need.
What threatens God’s supremacy in your life? How can you keep it in a subordinate place? Read Titus 1.
202 Why Playing It Safe Never Works in Love
When threatened, box turtles withdraw into their shells. You probably have box turtle genes!
By contrast, love, like faith, takes risks. It becomes open and hurtable.
Unless the box turtle becomes vulnerable, it’ll never cross the road. It won’t taste the sweet berries on the other side.
Loving openness begins with trust. You honestly lovingly speak the truth (Ephesians 4:15). You share your brokenness and where you hurt.
You tell others why they’re special to you. You listen to others to understand both their thoughts and feelings.
You extend grace. You cut people slack when they disappoint you. You forgive those who’ve hurt you. You don’t hold their sins against them.
You’re transparent. You’re who you appear to be. You let others see your heart by sharing what you value.
You’re compassionate. You feel others’ pain. You share your time and material blessings with others. You laugh together with others and show them you enjoy their company.
The easiest place to be open is with another trusted person or a small group. It’s scary and threatening to stick your neck out. Like most right things, it’s easier to talk about than do.
People have hurt you when you share your thoughts and feelings. You don’t feel safe when you’re vulnerable. But, if you don’t stick your neck out, you’ll never get to the sweet berries on the other side of the road!
What risk will you take to become a more loving person? Read Titus 2.
203 God’s Joy
Joy is the feeling of elation on the mountaintops of life. It’s visible on your face. I felt it when I got an “A” on a test. I experienced it when I won a track and field medal.
It lights my life when I’ve caught a big fish. I even feel it when Penn State beats Ohio State in football.
I experienced it when my children excelled in school. I’ve felt it when my grandchildren have shown signs of more mature decision-making.
Mood-altering drugs can artificially induce joy. But like ice cream on a 95-degree day, it quickly melts away.
Joy flourishes in the thin, clear, bracing air of mountaintop experiences. I’ve spent years of my life in valley smog. Can you identify with that?
When you strike another pothole, the wheels of your life start wobbling alarmingly. Joy is noticeably absent.
Where is it when a loved one dies? When you’re diagnosed with cancer? When the IRS questions your tax return?
God’s joy thrives in the valley. It’s invisible. It stares at adversity face-to-face. It doesn’t blink. It can fill your heart with peace when tears cloud your eyes at a graveside service.
God’s joy is ocean-deep contentment, serenity, and peace despite calamity. When my father died unexpectedly in 2015, my eyes were wet.
But I also felt a deep peace that he was with the Lord he loved. God’s joy comforted me where normal joy couldn’t tread.
God’s joy comes only from Jesus. He’s the sole distributor.
It’s four-wheel-drive joy. It enables emotional traction whatever the circumstances.
Jesus is speaking in John 15:11, “I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete” ( NIV).
God’s joy is Jesus’ joy. His Spirit generates it in the hearts of all who surrender control of their lives to Him (Galatians 5:22). For me, joy is a luxury, God’s joy a necessity.
When have you experienced God’s joy in trying circumstances? Read Titus 3.
204 Got Joy?
Knowing how track and field throwers do their best can help you maximize joy. You might guess they’d throw farthest by all out, 110% effort. You’d be exactly wrong!
Maximum distance is a by-product of relaxed, precise execution of proper throwing form. Trying to “kill it” tightens up muscles. They don’t work together. It produces disappointing results.
Likewise, you minimize joy when it’s your goal. You maximize it when you focus on something else—knowing God and fulfilling His purpose for your life.
Joy is ocean-deep contentment, serenity, and peace. It’s anchored in positive thoughts about who God is and what He has done.
The more you get God, the more you get joy. By contrast, believing lies about God, yourself, and others spawn negative thinking.
How do you connect with God and what He’s doing? You learn, trust, and obey His promises.
For example, because the LORD is your shepherd (Psalm 23), you’ll have everything you need, no matter what. Even when the wheels of life are falling off, He’s taking care of you. Trusting Him brings joy and peace despite your circumstances.
He’s good and righteous (Psalm 145:7). He’s your Savior (Habakkuk 3:18). He qualified you to share in His inheritance (Colossians 1:12). He answers prayer (John 16:24). He will raise you from the dead (Isaiah 26:19).
That’s just the tip of the promise iceberg. Joy flows when you see life from God’s perspective.
You feel it when you actively trust and obey Him in all life’s joys and difficulties. The more you get God, the more you get joy!
When have you experienced joy as a result of fulfilling God’s purposes?
Read Philemon.
205 Embrace Joy’s Family
My daughter is our family tree expert. I didn’t marry Diane McAdams in isolation. She had relational connections.
Diane invited people to our wedding I didn’t know or hardly knew. It was the same for her with my relatives and friends.
My daughter Krista married into the Carlen family. As a result, my grandchildren have DNA that traces back to Captain Robert Beheathland. He was an original settler in Jamestown, VA in 1607.
Similarly, God’s joy has a family. It includes faith, obedience, thanksgiving, love, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. You might recognize the last eight members.
Along with joy, they’re part of the fruit of the Spirit family (Galatians 5:22–23). They’re vitally connected to the Holy Spirit and each other. They have the same spiritual DNA.
When a storm disconnects the electrical power to your house, none of the lights work. When the power returns, they all do.
The Holy Spirit’s control in your life is the power source for the fruit of the Spirit. He also powers faith, obedience, and thanksgiving.
The members of joy’s extensive family are God’s gifts. They’re also commanded. For example, obedience is God’s gift, “For it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose” (Philippians 2:13 NIV).
It’s also commanded, “If you love me, keep my commands” (John 14:15 NIV). The same is true about all the other family members. The by-product of all of them is joy.
Choose to trust and obey God, and you choose joy. Choose to do the kind deed, and you choose joy. When you give thanks in all circumstances, you choose joy (1 Thessalonians 5:18).
How will the choices you make today provide an environment where joy abounds? Read Hebrews 1.
206 Do You Have God’s Peace?
In 2020 the challenge was to get and keep personal peace in a COVID-19-threatened world.
About 1990 I was fishing with Ernie in a small boat. I was running the outboard motor. Ernie was in the front.
Suddenly, extraordinarily fierce winds rushed upon us. We were about eight hundred meters from the marina. The swells quickly built to four to five feet.
I slowly, fearfully guided my small boat toward safety. We climbed each steep wave and crashed down time after time. We made slow progress.
Ernie was supernaturally serene. I worried the boat could capsize at any moment. Ernie calmly asked, “Jack, would you like a sandwich?” Ernie was a Christian with peace down to his bone marrow!
Peace in the Old Testament includes security (Psalm 4:8). It involves contentment (Isaiah 26:3). It encompasses prosperity (Psalm 122:6–7) and the absence of war (1 Samuel 7:14). In the New Testament, Jesus offers you His peace (John 14:27).
God’s peace is inner tranquility and poise. It’s a combination of hope, trust, and mind and soul quiet.
You can have it because God made peace through Jesus’ blood shed on the cross (Colossians 1:20). I first experienced it immediately after I made peace with God by inviting Jesus into my life as my Savior and Lord.
Feeling God’s peace depends on thinking about what is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, and admirable (Philippians 4:8–9). A disciplined mind shepherds a disciplined life.
The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life displace your peace. Your worries reflect how you think.
No problem is too big for God. An extra-extra-extra-large, trustworthy God in you should leave no room for worry.
Maintaining God’s peace depends on doing what’s right (Isaiah 32:17–18). "There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile; but glory, honor and peace for everyone who does good: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile" (Romans 2:9–10 NIV).
Salvation by grace through faith produces a doing-right lifestyle. A life-shaping belief underlies a peaceful life.
When has God enabled you to live in the sphere of peace? Read Hebrews 2.