We heard recently of a person (middle-aged) who “got saved” in a large evangelistic church nearby. Unfortunately the result so far has not been “love, joy, peace, patience”, but increased criticalness toward others and judgmentalism. This bites. Unfortunately it has been the direction of much of our “evangelistic” work, judging by things I keep hearing.
Somehow we’re not getting that “sweet sweet song of salvation” (thanks for so many cool lyrics, Larry Norman). Somehow we’re not making people more holy, just more self-righteous. But what the world needs is true holiness. The list above continues, “kindness, gentleness, goodness, faithfulness, self-control.” (Gal 5) Good list. “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done.” Good standard.
Since I am a Christian, and I take the Bible quite seriously, I very much believe we can promote and find and increase those good, holy, ‘sweet’ things, and we must devote ourselves to doing so; that’s a huge part of the hope of the Gospel. We hope the person mentioned above is able to move in that direction in the months ahead, because that is always major good news.