I'm kicking off a series this weekend on the Fruit of the Spirit. Some of you may be thinking, "This series has been done a million times over by countless preachers all over the world. Heard it once, heard it a million times..."
While the passage in Galatians 5 has probably been preached countless times, I wonder if we really can get to a place where it becomes boring or redundant to hear about what the Holy Spirit wants to do in us and through us. After meeting dozens of people in Culpeper over the last several months, one thing I've come to realize is that there is a great deal of hurt, frustration and distrust within the Church. These manifest themselves in a myriad of symptoms in our community that do nothing to build up the Church, but only to weaken it.
Who knows how things got so bad? It may have happened generations ago and the symptoms have merely been passed along and taught. I don't really know. What I do know is that healing needs to begin occurring among those who call themselves Christians in Culpeper. Healing always begins with love - the unconditional love that finds its origin in Christ and the forgiving love that can't possibly be experienced and expressed in our own strength and disciplines, but only through the Holy Spirit who dwells in us.
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