still alive!

I know it has been a long time since I last posted on this blog, but I want to assure any of you who still have any residual interest in it that I am still alive and well, and the blog is still alive too.

I have neglected you, dear reader, and I apologise for that, but I have been somewhat busy as Minister of Mutley Baptist Church in Plymouth, Devon. It’s a wonderful church to serve and it’s wonderful to be back ‘home’ in Devon – the only county in UK that rhymes with ‘heaven’. Do visit our website and see what we’re about.

So why, you may ask, am I renewing my interest in creating bloggages? It’s partly as a discipline to help me reflect, partly vanity that I don’t want this body of work to die, and partly because I have just renewed my subscription to WordPress and feel I ought to be getting value for money out of it.

So what reflection might I offer you, my loyal bloggist, today? Well, it’s something I have been pondering from what I am saying in this Sunday’s sermon:

It seems that there are quite a few proverbs related to apples. I don’t know why it is apples in particular, except that they are a commonplace fruit. Can you think of any (proverbs, not apples)?

Here are a couple I could remember – an apple never falls far from the tree; an apple a day keeps the doctor away, a rotten apple spoils the barrel, and others.

I think we could add another that I have adapted from what Jesus said: ‘Apples only grow on apple trees’. Well, that’s obvious isn’t it? Jesus used other fruit for his example, but it’s the same point he was making… people will see what we are like by the fruit of our life. What we say and how we say it will reflect who we really are. You can’t grow apples if you’re not an apple tree, so people will see what sort of tree you are by the fruit they see.

The Bible talks about the things that God’s Spirit grows within us as fruit – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. If people see more of those things in us and hear those them from us then it’s a clear sign that God’s Spirit is at work in us.

Be blessed and be a blessing