GBC Community Update: Living a fruitful life

Good morning! I hope you had a great weekend. I was away at my annual living history event I help organize. Its always fun to make history while living it. I also find opportunities like this a great chance to reflect from a spiritual perspective. Bearing fruit is also about looking back, learning from the past, then moving forward with an eye to the future.
 
 
Spring Work Party
Our property team will be holding the spring work party on Saturday.  From 9am until noon there will be a variety of tasks needing to be done to prepare our church for the coming season. All are invited to come as there will be things to do for all types of abilities. Many hands make light work!
 
 
Thought for the Day:  Living a Fruitful Life- The Fruit of the Holy Spirit
Last week I introduced the idea of living a fruitful life as a follower of Jesus. This allows us to not only let the light of the gospel shine but also live the life God has given us to the fullest.
Here’s our next idea: whenever the Bible speaks of fruit or being fruitful in Christ, it is often in reference to the fruit of the Holy Spirit, as shared in Galatians 5, operating in the life of a believer: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
Notice that these fruits are attributes of God-like love, peace, faithfulness, and goodness. It is expected that these fruits will closely resemble the parent plant, which in this case is the Spirit of God. While it’s true that we can’t see in the human heart to know who is truly born again and who isn’t, we can see the fruit of a person’s life or the absence of it.
A person who is truly saved and belonging to Jesus, having already crucified the flesh with its passions and desires, is now living according to the Spirit. And if he is living according to the Spirit then he is also walking according to the Spirit, thereby making the fruits of the flesh less visible which we read about right before in Galatians 5. Fruit, and a fruitful life, is manifest in how we live and what we do.
 
In His grip,
Pastor Chris