Monday, September 3, 2007

The 10th fruit

a Jesus thought...
This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent. (John 17:3)

a Godly thought...
The embracing of a balance between orthodoxy and orthopraxy is one of the correctives we must take in order to become more truly biblical, where the focus is definitely on right acting rather than merely on right thinking. (p121 Frost & Hirsch)

a leading thought...
It is important for us to surround ourselves with people who love us enough to be honest, even when it hurts. (p79 Court)

a Dave thought...
I have noticed how often it is for us all to be honest with each other in the church. It seems the people and relationships I have not connected to the institution are often more real than those immersed in it. Sometimes I think it is because we are always taught from age 3 in primary to display the 9 fruits of the Spirit and be incredibly nice to each other, but rarely taught to speak truth to each other.
We need to care enough to confront as it is only through honest conversation with each other that real character growth occurs. This is even evident in anonymous comments on blogs where people are often too ashamed to put their name next to their thoughts as they may lose relationship with someone.
So how about we grow up and let each other know what we really think in love and speak truth on all occasions. Finally I'd like to suggest an amendment to the Scriptures. In Galatians 5 I propose that we reinstate the tenth fruit that Paul omitted on legal advice - honesty.

Just a thought.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

the Dave thought in your recent blog - we thought recently about competition (in another venue) and I think that maybe we could be more 'competitive' as Salvos in being kind, loving, caring, and yes, even honest (but not brutally) with each other - imagine the consequences of such a competition - in families, in corps, in communitites, in nations! Wow.