The 12 Days of Christmas—Days 9 and 10

“On the ninth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, nine ladies dancing…”

The nine ladies mentioned here are representative of the nine fruits of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. These nine are things that are to be natural outcroppings of the life that is lived by the Spirit of God.

These nine things are things that are a part of the life of the Christ Follower. It’s not optional. If you are a Christian, there ought to be a concern in your soul if there is little or no evidence of these things in your life. The 9 ladies ought to remind you that if the fruit of the Spirit is not showing itself in your life, then you need to ask why that is, and take the necessary steps to make sure that this fruit is being born out in your life.

“On the tenth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, ten lords a-leaping…”

(I'm pretty sure the song isn't talking about SITH lords, but...)

The ten lords are representative of the Ten Commandments. These foundational laws from the Mosaic Law are the summary laws of the Old Testament, and reiterated for us in two commands given by the Lord Jesus. These ten commands given to us tell us how we should love our God and our neighbors.

The first four commands (No other gods before Him, no idols, don’t take the Lord’s name in vain, and keep the Sabbath day holy) all relate to how we show God we love Him. They have to do with the vertical relationship between us and God and are vital to our relationship with Him.

The last six commands (Honor dad and mom, don’t murder, don’t commit adultery, don’t steal, don’t lie, don’t covet) all have to do with how we treat our neighbors. These have to do with the horizontal relationships we have with each other, and if we want to have healthy relationships, these six things ought to be regular parts of the Christian life.

So watch your life and see if you are living out the fruit of the Spirit and the Ten Commandments…and we’ll see you on Sunday!

The Myth of Self-Control

In the world we live in, we often find ourselves doing our best to be the kind of people that we know we should be. What we fail to realize most of the time is that our efforts to become what we think we ought to be fall far short of what we truly ought to be. Why is this? I believe it is because our aim is off. We are shooting at the wrong target.

Let me try and explain. In Galatians 5, we find the list of character qualities that Paul refers to as “The Fruit of the Spirit.” The last of these character qualities is self-control. Now, understanding that English is a far cry from Greek (the original language in which the New Testament was written), there is not a way to really define what the original intent of Paul was to say here. Many of us when we hear the term, “Self-Control” immediately think of a person who is able to control themselves in their own power. I hope that by even reading that statement you got a question in your head that when something like this: “What did he just say?” We tend to think of John Wayne, a no-nonsense kind of thinking that says, “I’ll get done because of who I am.”

I don’t think I need to tell you that this isn’t at all what the Bible considers holy in the life of the Christ Follower. In fact, what God wants us to be is dependent on Him. This means it’s not about us, but about Him. In the King James Version, the word is translated, “temperance”, and it has the idea of being strong while at the same time being at rest. Here’s the idea I think Paul is trying to get at…

As His followers, we are called to abide (that is, live) in Him. It is in Him that our lives have the ability to do what He has called us to do. “Without me you can do nothing,” Jesus said. We must remember that in Him, and only in Him can we do anything. So when the Bible calls us to be “self-controlled”, I believe that God is actually calling us to be Spirit controlled. He holds the remote control of our life, and if we live in Him, He will guide us to where we need to be. We have the power of God at our disposal as we rest in Him. That’s what the word means, and that is what we are called to be.

We will talk more about this tomorrow, but in the meantime, stay connected to Christ, and we’ll see you on Sunday!