Good morning my friends. I'm so glad you were joining me today for the morning

mindset. Are you ready to get your mind aligned with the truth of God for this day. That's why we're here. We're going to do it

by diving back into Galatians chapter 5 verses 19 through 23 is what we're going to be looking at today. And I'm going backwards

about a verse or two just to drive home a point and to make it very clear what Paul is doing and is not doing and these two

opposing lists that he's provided for us. You see in Galatians 5 19 19 through 23, we do find two opposing lists. We find one that he refers to as the works of the flesh.

And then we have another list of characteristics that he calls the fruit of the spirit.

And our human tendency with lists like these where one is bad or not preferred behaviors and another is preferred

behaviors that seem to be good. Our tendency is to say I need to do more of the good ones and less of the bad ones.

And I'm not going to argue with you if that's the way you look at this list.

That is one conclusion we should come to when we see a list like this.

But what I want to drive home here is the means by which we pursue that goal.

You see, Paul is not giving us this list of bad things and

this list of good things and saying you with all the gumshin you can muster

gritting your teeth pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps

should avoid these ugly nasty behaviors that he's described and instead do the good ones. That's not what Paul is saying.

Neither is he giving us a list of rules that we should keep and rules about things we should avoid.

That is not what Paul is doing.

If he were doing that, he would essentially be giving us a new law.

Let that sink in for a moment.

And if you remember, the point Paul has made it all of Galatians up to this point.

He has been telling us that no one becomes righteous in God's eyes

by observing the law.

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