Galatians 5:22-23 - "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law."
There are all sorts of piles of dead clippings in front of houses and next to the road these days. It's pruning time. Tall grasses, flowering trees and bushes, they're all getting pruned back. You prune these things because you want them to bloom more fully, to bear more fruit. If you don't prune off the suckers, then the flowers and foliage and fruit will not be as colorful and rich and sweet.
Right now we're in the season of Lent. Lent is the season leading up to Easter, which is on April 1 this year, a few short weeks away. "Lent" is short for "lengthen". It's the season when the days are lengthening and things are starting to grow. But they don't grow as colorful and rich and sweet if they're not pruned. That's why many people have been doing a Lenten discipline since Ash Wednesday back on February 14. Lenten disciplines are when you take on something like praying daily or reading your Bible daily or serving at a mission each week. Lenten disciplines can also be giving up something like caffeine or coke or cigarettes or sweets or gossip. Whether you give up something or take on something or both, the purpose of a discipline is pruning, specifically pruning off the suckers from your life.
Suckers in our lives, as they do in plants, drain the flow of nutrients that are needed to produce colorful and rich and sweet fruit, like "the fruit of the Spirit [which] is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control." (Galatians 5:22-23) So the suckers need to be pruned. With disciplines. In the strength of Christ. In the power of the Holy Spirit that changes us, heart and mind, from the inside out. So there can be more fruit. And less suckers. After all, who doesn't want more "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control"?
It's not too late. If you haven't already, ask God now to help you decide on your Lenten disciplines so the pruning can continue to Easter Sunday and beyond. The fruit will burst forth rich and lush and sweet.
Praise God!
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