Helping Or Hurting?
Galatians 5:22-23 New King James Version
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law.
Wow!!
As I was reading my devotional this morning something stuck out to me. It said something like this; Don’t allow distorted jealousy to be masked as constructive criticism. My first thought was wow! And then I had to stop and pray. I don’t ever want to be the kind of person who takes ugly internal feelings and tries to tear someone else down while calling it constructive criticism.
Worry About Yourself
Oftentimes we nitpick what someone else is or isn’t doing, but we fail to step back and clearly see our own faults and failures. It’s much easier to tell everyone else what they should be doing while ignoring what we should be dealing with personally.
While thinking about that I wondered how we can guard against all of that. I don’t think anyone sets out to destroy others. Most people don’t even recognize what they are doing. Being ignorant of what you are doing is not an excuse, so what do we do?
Fruit!
This scripture was staring me in the face as I wondered that. The fruit of the spirit. We have been given all of these fruit. The moment we were saved they were little seeds planted inside of us. Each time we are presented with a situation where they are needed it’s like watering them so they can grow, that is if we actually dig deep and use them.
If we were truly trying to help someone with our constructive criticism, which is necessary at times, it would be done using the fruit, not works of the flesh (Galatians 5:19-21). It would be done with love and kindness, gentleness and self-control. If what we are wanting to say can not and is not done with those things then we aren’t trying to help. We are trying to tear down and control. Neither of those things comes from God.
Look Inside
Let’s take time to look within ourselves this morning and see if there is anything we would like God to help us change. The second greatest commandment is to love our neighbor as ourselves. He wouldn’t make it so important and not be willing to help us do it.
Matthew 22:37-39, Matthew 7:3-5, Matthew 7:12
**Lord thank You for the correction in Your word. Help me to look inside myself and see if there is anything that may need Your fine tuning. Help me to be a better person and a better Christian. I want others to see You and Your love through me Lord. In Jesus name I pray, Amen. **
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