(From our church-wide devotion book at Pinedale Christian Church, "2.0 You")

DAY 6

Reflect:

Read 2 Corinthians 5:17. What does it mean that God is creating you anew?

How can you be a “new creation” even when you sin?

What things have changed in you because of Christ?

Are there things from your past, keeping you from believing you are a new creation in Christ?

Jot a prayer to God, asking Him to continue the new things He is doing in you.

Pray
Lord God, Thank you for the first week of this 40-Day study. Thank you for the gift of newness found in you. Help me as I learn to surrender more fully to You.
Lord, I need Your grace every day. Please do in my what I can’t do in myself. Help me to forgive others of their sins, and pleas continue to forgive me for my struggles and stumbles. Thank You for grace big enough for my biggest failures.
Strengthen me, Lord, and help me to become more like You. Forgive me for acting as if I’m a slave to sin. Help me instead to live with power that can only come from You.
Make me bold. Make me passionate. Make me light for the darkness. And each day, continue to make me new.

DAY 7
This week we will become fruit inspectors, not of the orchard or supermarket realm, but rather of our own life. We will be looking at five slices of the fruit of the Spirit, tasting what the genuine character of God is like. Prior to being connectedto God, we naturally produce some pretty bad stuff: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness... a wide array of behavior described by Paul in Galatians 5.
But once we become truly connected to Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit, a new flavor of attitudes and attributes begin to flow from our lives naturally. These are relational characteristics that have been a part of God’s relationship with Himself (Father, Son, and Spirit) for eternity and thus are permanent and immutable qualities of all good, healthy, and enduring associations.
One of America’s greatest founding fathers, Ben Franklin, saw the value of good character. “In 1726, at the age of 20, Benjamin Franklin created a system to develop his character.” (Thirteenvirtues.com). Franklin saw the necessity for people to develop great personal qualities that improved and enhanced the well-being of society.
He reasoned that without taking responsibility for one’s own individual character development, that no culture could survive but would rather be crushed under the weight of its own corruption. Franklin (who was not a Christian), thus worked on his thirteen virtues, one at a time, a week and month at a time, with a system he developed on his own.
Using a garden analogy, over time, he looked back to find that the virtues he desired for his own life had become “weedy,” and that the tendency of his own character, without constant and diligent focus, did not come naturally. Franklin’s experiment holds some lessons for all of us.
This week, consider these questions as you study these virtues: (Joy, peace, hope, patience, self-control)
• What is God showing me to be the key to bearing good fruit?
• Who gets the credit for my good character?
• Who alone can produce good character in you?
• Why is ‘trying’ to produce good character futile?
• Character is “caught,” not “taught”: How does God’s character NATURALLY show up in our lives?