A WORD FOR TODAY, July 29, 2025
Peggy Hoppes
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Blessings. Peg
A WORD FOR TODAY, July 29, 2025
“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and lusts. If we live by the Spirit, let’s also walk by the Spirit. Let’s not become conceited, provoking one another, and envying one another.” Galatians 5:22-26, WEB
Today’s scripture was the focus for our evening devotions while we were in Honduras. Each pair used stories and activities to teach the girls about the fruit. Bruce and I talked about the fruit of kindness. We used the story of the Good Samaritan, who went out of his way to be kind to a man who was beaten and left for dead on the road. We brought Jesus bandages and had the girls bind (pretend) wounds on each other’s arms. They even put bandages on Bruce and me. It was a chance to show compassion, even if it was pretend.
We had a relatively drama free week, although the day after our lesson with the girls, Bruce fell and hurt his head. He’s fine, though he required a bandage. That evening, when the girls came for dinner, we let them bind Bruce’s wound with more Jesus stickers. His head was covered with them. It was fun and silly, but it augmented the lesson from the previous day.
The thing about teaching is that the teacher often learns more than the students, not only in the preparation, but also in the responses from the children. They gave us ideas of ways to be kind and made us more aware of the needs around us. The same is true of the other fruit of the Spirit. We became more aware of opportunities to practice joy, peace, patience, goodness, faith, gentleness, and self-control. And all these are founded in love.
Christ’s commandment is that we love one another and lay down our lives for our friends. We are commanded to bear fruit, lasting fruit, fruit built on love. His command is that we live as He lived, in selfless, sacrificial love. Sacrifice means giving up something, perhaps even something we love or something we have earned through our own suffering. It means changing our ways. But when we practice sacrificial love, we do not experience a sense of loss or emptiness because those things are no longer for us to enjoy. We find the real joy in the relationship we have with Christ through our obedience to His command. The grace of God does not come to us because we are obedient. Instead, we receive God’s grace which fills us with His love. As we abide in love, we can do nothing but be obedient. in God’s love is a life of joy, even when it means sacrifice.
Faith means change. It means transformation. It means living differently than the world. A mission trip always leads to some change in our hearts, our minds, our ideas, our understanding. As Christians, we are to obey God, live by His commandments, and show the world our gifts. We’ll face many people who do not understand our faith and they will respond with anger and bullying. Thankfully we were always received with hope and peace, but some mission trips are dangerous in ways we don’t expect. Yet, when we love as God has commanded us to love, the world will see the light of Christ and experience the reality of life in faith. Our love, or Christ’s love in and through us, might just help others see that life is much better when lived in love and hope and peace.
It always comes back to love. Jesus commanded that we love one another as He loved us. John tells us that we love because God loved us and His love has given us new life. We are reborn in faith by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, by His blood and through the waters of baptism. We are given His Spirit and called to take His Word into the world and to call all those who are lost and dying to Him, where they will experience forgiveness, grace, new life, peace and His joy. We are the Church, sent into the world to invite all nations into our fellowship, to make them part of us, so that they will benefit from God’s mercy, be transformed and filled with the gifts of His fruit.
A WORD FOR TODAY is posted five days a week – Monday through Friday. The devotional on Wednesday takes a look at the scripture from the Revised Common Lectionary for the upcoming Sunday. A WORD FOR TODAY is posted on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/pages/A-Word-for-Today-Devotional/339428839418276. Like the page to receive the devotion through Facebook. For information and to access our archives, visit http://www.awordfortoday.org