Day Nine: Nine Ladies Dancing
Expression
Sing aloud to God our strength; shout for joy to the God of Jacob! (Psalm 81:1 ESV)
Some music causes our toes to tap. Better music causes our toes to tap and our bodies to move. Even better music causes our toes to tap, our bodies to move, and our arms to wave. The best music causes us to dance. Even stodgy Midwesterners like me know this. Sometimes it takes every ounce of repression I own to stop myself from dancing.
These dancing ladies represent the fruits of the spirit. As a reminder, they are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
Sometimes we have viewed those fruits as commands. But instead, these are nine things that we get to do when we know Jesus, and He knows us. Like our response to some music, our response to being with Jesus is to be those things.
I imagine those nine ladies dancing because they can not help themselves! In the same way, be loving, joyful, peace-promoting, patient, kind, good, faithful, gentle, and self-controlled. Because we just can not help ourselves!
We do not do those things by act of will, practice, or perfection. We do them because in Christ, we get to!
We can not show fruit on our own. But in Christ we DO.