The Fruits of the Spirit.

Last month, K-A posted that she was going to do the love verse (1 Corinthians 13: 4-7) with her kids in honour of Valentines day. I decided to do the same, and the kids and I worked on memorizing those verses. We added one quality of love each day, and they each got a mini M&M for each point they remembered. It went well. Evelyn still remembers most of the points, Ethan remembers 'Love is Patient, Love is Kind". I use the verse for correcting behaviour and it works well.

This month, I plan to do the Fruits of the Spirit. They are all character qualities that I want to develop in the kids (and myself...) I am not sure that I can make them understand the abstract qualities of the 'fruits', but maybe one day it will make sense to them. The kids each coloured 3 pieces of the same fruit. The plan is to have them stick a piece into the 'basket' as they remember them. The fruits on the side are kind of like an answer sheet, but they'll have to remember what each fruit stands for.

It is bitterly cold outside today(-38 plus windchill), and all schools were cancelled. Ryan had to report to work, but won't have any students today. So, Evelyn's pre-school was also cancelled. What to do? I googled 'Fruits of the Spirit' and found some wonderful resources. Both kids really got into the cadence call. It goes like this:

I don’t know what you’ve been told…
Galatians’ got the fruit of gold.
Patience, joy, love, peace and faith…
With gentleness He’ll get the praise.

Self-control with kind and good…
We’ll be like Jesus said we should…
Ask me what would Jesus do?
Galatians 5 Verse 22

Sound off: Galatians 5
Bring it on down: Verse 22

Galatians 5 Verse 22

WE'VE GOT- THE FRUIT!

(optional ending)
WE”VE GOT- (clap) - (stomp) - THE FRUIT!

Here is the linkto all the resources:

http://www.dltk-bible.com/jesus/fruit_of_the_spirit-index.htm

I love the translation in 'The Message' of this verse and the ones before it. It's a great juxtaposition of living for yourself and living for God (my comments in parenthesis):

Galatians 5:19-23.

"It is obvious what kind of life develops out of trying to get your own way all the time: repetitive, loveless, cheap sex; a stinking accumulation of mental and emotional garbage; frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness; trinket gods; magic show religion; paranoid lonliness; cutthroat competition; all-comsuming-yet-never-satisfied wants; a brutal temper; and impotence to love or be loved; divided homes and divided lives; small minded and lopsided persuits; the vicious habit of depersonalizing everyone into a rival; uncontrolled and uncontrollable addictions; ugly parodies of community. I could go on. (Can you believe this was 2000 years ago!? It sounds like today!)

This isn't the first time I have warned you, you know. If you use our freedom this way, you will not inherit God's kingdom. (It's our choice how to act, but every choice has a consequence - good or bad)

But what happens when you live God's way? He brings gifts into our lives, much the same way that fruit appears in an orchard - things like affection for others, exuberance about life, serenity. We develop a willingness to stick with things, a sense of compassion in the heart, and a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people. We find ourselves involved in loyal commitments, not needing to force our way in life, able to marshal and direct our energies wisely.

Legalism is helpless in bringing this about; it only gets in the way."

Then I looked for songs to help us memorize the verse. I came up with a simple and beautiful one that inspired me to try making a video to go with the first verse of the song. Here it is: