Sermon Summary

Below are the main points from Sunday's sermon "The Juicy Fruit Life."

• Spirituality is more than mere feel-good philosophy. It is practical. When Jesus warned his disciples about false prophets, he said, "Ye will know them by their fruits." A spiritual tree (life rooted and grounded in God's allness) bears spiritual fruit. In other words, without you saying a word your spirituality shows forth in all that you do, say and by the quality of your living.
• One of the fruits or telltale signs of the spiritual life is LOVE. Without any effort at all, you find yourself engaged in a love affair with everything and everyone in the world. You LOVE, because you can't help loving. At some point you realize that YOU ARE LOVE IN ACTION.
• As LOVE, you will find that (1) unforgiving attitudes resulting from past hurts (2)harbored resentments (3) petty dislikes fall away as naturally as leaves fall from the trees in Winter. The beauty of this is you are not making an effort to rid yourself of these feelings. These leaves just don't grow on the spiritual tree.
• The Bible states that "Perfect love casts out fear." The spiritual tree does not grow fear fruit. Fear of persons, places, conditions and things fall away--if only gradually and by degrees. You've heard it said that if you can shake the fear of a disease the healing is sure to come. As a spiritual tree bearing the fruit of LOVE, the fear of (seeming)disease and the fear of the consequences of (seeming) disease drop away. You are no longer manipulated by disease and diagnosis. You are free to discover the WHOLENESS of your BEING.
• Another fruit of the spiritual life is JOY. Unconditional joy. No one gave you this joy, so they cannot take it away. No thing gave you this joy. It is generated from the I AM that YOU ARE. It out-pictures as genuine cheerfulness and a positive attitude. Bearing the fruit of joy, it is no possible for you to be bored.