Westley: Hear this now: I will always come for you.
Buttercup: But how can you be sure?
Westley: This is true love. You think this happens every day?
True love doesn’t happen every day, but it happens here, at the Catch. And it happens every day.
“Grandpa, will you come back tomorrow and read me the story again?”
Grandpa: “As you wish.”
In the last scene of the movie, The Princess Bride, the late Peter Falk has the last laugh. As he’s preparing to leave his grandson’s bedroom, the Fred Savage character in the movie who is sick in bed, and “forced” to listen to his grandfather read him an adventure story with kissing in it, suddenly wants to hear it again; Falk looks back at the boy, places his hat on his head, and utters what may be the most famous line of his whole acting career, “As you wish.”
But the fruit of the Spirit is …
[May I have the envelope, please …]
love, 
joy,
peace,
patience,
kindness,
goodness,
faithfulness,
gentleness and
self-control.
Against such things there is no law. (Galatians 5:22-23)
This last one is a bit of surprise, at least it is to me. It seems the least godly of the lot. All the other characteristics seem more out-going; self-control seems more internalized. Others can benefit from love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness and gentleness, but self-control seems more my own private battle. Indirectly it relates to others, but that’s only because it gets me out of the way so the Spirit of God can get to work through my life.
But the fruit of the Spirit is …
love,
joy,
peace,
patience,
kindness,
goodness,
faithfulness,
gentleness and
self-control.
Against such things there is no law. (Galatians 5:22-23)
It was the beginning of the end for Jesus. He was at the peak of His popularity. Crowds were building wherever He went. Many in those crowds had been touched and healed by Jesus. The crippled were walking, the blind could see, the deaf could hear, and lepers had been pronounced clean by temple priests. You couldn’t beat that kind of publicity. Everything was building toward the Passover celebration. The city was teeming with people who had made the yearly trek from surrounding villages to worship in the holy city. Many of them were ready to crown Jesus King of the Jews. Even children had gotten into the act, tearing palm fronds off of trees and creating a green carpet ride for the Savior of the world. The opportunity would make a big time promoter salivate. And given this, Jesus chose to ride into town, in His moment of a lifetime, on a … donkey? Is this some kind of a joke? Were all the fine Arabian horses spoken for? Was a donkey all they could find?
No. The donkey was the animal of choice. Jesus even told his disciples where to find it. This was the king of the universe here — the one in whom all things were made that were made. He could have summoned every animal in the animal kingdom to escort Him into Jerusalem had He wanted to — a regular eat-your-heart-out-Disney Lion King entrance, and He chose a donkey, because He wanted to make a point. The point being: He’s a different kind of king from a different kind of kingdom. In His kingdom, you rule with humility. You lead as a servant with gentleness not with power, lording it over people. “Not by might nor by power but by my Spirit says the Lord.”
The fruit of the Spirit is … gentleness. You do not match power for power. You do an end around, or you duck, or you choose the last place instead of the first. You follow the Spirit. and the Spirit hardly ever does it like we would do it. The Spirit throws curves that are impossible to hit, so that you will always know it was the Spirit and not you that got the victory.
The fruit of the Spirit is … gentleness. Think of all the fruits so far and they are all quiet, low-key, donkey-like rather than horse-like. They come alongside. They lift up; they don’t press down. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness … “against such things there is no law,” because no law can cause them or defeat them. They have nothing to do with the law, and everything to do with the Spirit. They are the fruits of the Spirit and they are evidence that God is in your life, and they remind us of how God works. It’s a different kind of kingdom with a different kind of king.
But the fruit of the Spirit is …
love,
joy,
peace,
patience,
kindness,
goodness,
faithfulness,
gentleness and
self-control.
Against such things there is no law. (Galatians 5:22-23)
Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. (Galatians 5:25)
Remember, all these qualities we’ve been talking about are known as the fruit of the Spirit. They are not qualities to be added to our lives as much as they are evidence of the life that is already there. If you find that these qualities are foreign to you, then you would have cause to be concerned whether you have been born of the Spirit. Call them “signs” of the Spirit if you wish, that would be the sense of it.
This is what the Spirit of God looks like in our lives. These are the qualities that render you fruitful for the kingdom of God. If you can see these things at work in your life, then God is at work in you. So faithfulness would be just what it is — consistency of belief. Faithfulness would be God holding onto us while we hold onto Him. Faithfulness is what you can count on, and though you can’t always count on yourself or those around you, you can always count on God.
Without bragging, I’ve had numerous people tell me they have been encouraged by my faithfulness over the years. That’s just because I started out with a visible form of public ministry primarily through my music, and I’m sure some of the people in our Catch audience go back that far with me, so they can see that I’ve been faithful. Well they’ve been faithful, too, because here we all are, continuing to move forward in our faith, and your faith is just as confirming as mine. This faithfulness is really not to our credit, it is to the credit of the Lord, and the credibility of our faith itself to hold us.
People who jump from one set of belief systems to another are not necessarily unfaithful people as much as it says the faith or the belief system they have — whatever you call it — is not solid and true enough to last over the long haul. It may have had elements of truth, but it wasn’t the whole truth. The fact that we are still believing — still being driven by the same simple faith that we started with — says more about the truthfulness of what we believe than it does about us. As you know, we can’t really boast about anything except our Lord.
But it goes both ways. Once this faith has gotten a hold of you, you can’t let go.
I received an email a while back from a pastor who was recalling when he first heard me speak when he was a student at a Christian college and I had come to minister on his campus. My talks those many years ago had had a profound effect on his faith. He had gone on to join the ministry, and now he was inviting me to come to his church and speak to his congregation. And then he wrote something I have never forgotten. He wrote that he wanted to share me with his congregation — true — but even more than that, he wanted me to know that he’d been faithful.
Who’s faithful and who gets the credit? We are faithful, but God gets all the credit.
“As you wish,” He says, and we wish to hold on for dear life. We will never let go, because He never let’s go of us.
But the fruit of the Spirit is … faithfulness. Against such there is no law.
But the fruit of the Spirit is …
love,
joy,
peace,
patience,
kindness,
goodness,
faithfulness,
gentleness and
self-control.
Against such things there is no law. (Galatians 5:22-23)
The fruit of the Spirit is … goodness. This is a trait sorely missing in our world today, and in society as a whole. Every morning you open the paper it seems a new low in human decency has been reached, and a new high in evil has been unleashed on the world. Terror, random violence prevails. Common courtesy, common decency, good will and overall benevolence are in short supply.
But the fruit of the Spirit is …
love,
joy,
peace,
patience,
kindness,
goodness,
faithfulness,
gentleness and
self-control.
Against such things there is no law. (Galatians 5:22-23)
Kindness is not a person being nice. It’s not a character trait as much as it is an action. When we talk about acts of kindness, that is closer to it. A person’s kindness would manifest itself in some form of action, most often in aid to the poor, the less fortunate or the homeless, although it could be kindness to anyone and everyone.
Ten Stories to open each day
From now until Christmas, we will be including a personal story each day about one of your fellow Catch Citizens and his/her interaction with the Catch Ministry. Today we hear from Terri in California.
Way back before there was a Catch ministry, in 1976, I stood in the back of a high school auditorium listening to John Fischer sing. The thing that struck me at the time was the sheer honesty and transparency of the lyrics.
I was struggling with a few things at the time, indeed, secretly dealing with depression. I knew I couldn’t share it with my Christian community – after all, such a thing was a lack of faith – but here was someone who was honest about the fact that Christians go through rough times, sometimes rougher times than others. I knew that from the Word, but to have it affirmed publicly made believing it much easier.
When I discovered The Catch a few years ago and reconnected with John’s ministry, I was struggling once again with the Christian subculture that had become more about whom you voted for than whom you served. It was a breath of fresh air to see the focus return to Christ. This year, because of changes in the overall public mood, I began to feel fearful of the world outside my doors. The prayer team and the weekly Church at the Catch gave me a great deal of encouragement, and the will to reconnect with the world at large. This ministry gave me back the world outside my door. For that, I am truly grateful.
Princess Buttercup losing patience waiting …
But the fruit of the Spirit is …
[May I have the envelope, please …]
love,
joy,
peace,
patience,
kindness,
goodness,
faithfulness,
gentleness and
self-control.
Against such things there is no law. (Galatians 5:22-23)
Eugene Peterson wrote a book whose title is a pretty good definition of today’s fruit of the Spirit. It’s called: A Long Obedience in the Same Direction. That would be patience.
But the fruit of the Spirit is …
[May I have the envelope, please …]
love,
joy,
peace,
patience,
kindness,
goodness,
faithfulness,
gentleness and
self-control.
Against such things there is no law. (Galatians 5:22-23)
“Glory to God in highest heaven, and peace on earth to those with whom God is pleased.” (Luke 2:14)
Do you need peace in your life? Are you experiencing conflict anywhere? Is there someone with whom you are not speaking? Are you at odds with a fellow believer, or someone in your family? Amazingly, conflict is most likely to be found in our own families, among those we know the best, and this season is when those conflicts are most likely to heighten. It is this type of conflict that this particular fruit of the Spirit is waiting for.
But the fruit of the Spirit is …
[May I have the envelope, please …]
love,
joy,
peace,
patience,
kindness,
goodness,
faithfulness,
gentleness and
self-control.
Against such things there is no law. (Galatians 5:22-23)
Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you. (Luke 2:10-11)
I can spell Christmas with only three letters: J-O-Y! Go tell it on the mountain, over the hill, and everywhere, that Jesus Christ is born! The angel brought glad tidings of great joy! Not just joy — great joy.
John Fischer The Catch 