8<\/b><\/a><\/i>This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/i>What brings glory to the Father is seeing his children bear the fruits of being followers of Jesus. We shine for Jesus when we reflect His character and do acts and deeds that show how the fruits of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23) are working in our lives \u2013 and these bring glory to our Father and heaven and lead others to praise God.<\/p>\n
Illustration:<\/b><\/p>\n
In the book \u201cMere Christianity,\u201d author and theologian C.S. Lewis describes the idea of how we can shine for Jesus. He explained how we know that \u201cthe moon does not make its own light. It simply reflects the light of the sun. The moon appears to shine not because of what it is by itself, but only because it is able to reflect the rays of the sun.<\/i><\/p>\n
<\/i>In the same way, we who are Christians or followers of Jesus do not have our own light. There is only one true source of light \u2013 God. God has made His light available for us through His Son Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, when we accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior, we receive this light and our purpose is revealed to us; we are to reflect Christ in our lives.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n
Application:<\/b><\/p>\n
Sometimes, a person can appear to do good deeds such as acts of kindness and or generosity for another person but it is not out of a heart aligned to God. They may actually do such things because they want others to notice them and give them praise, or maybe they want something in return such as a reward or returned favor. Acts that are from a selfish heart rarely ever leads people to praise God. Instead of the glory being for God, the glory becomes for the person who did the kind gesture. This is not what Matthew 5:16 talks about.<\/p>\n
Good deeds are deeds that flow out of a heart that is aligned to the heart of Jesus<\/b>. Jesus demonstrated to us perfect love, perfect joy, perfect peace and all the other fruits of the spirit in their own perfection. As children of God, we have been given the gift of the Holy Spirit who guides us and leads us to becoming more and more like Jesus. Therefore, as we pray and listen to God\u2019s voice, read His Word and seek to obey His commands, we cannot help but also demonstrate love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,\u00a0<\/sup><\/b>gentleness, and self-control. Slowly, but surely, as we learn to yield ourselves to God more and more each day, change is taking place in our lives and we become more and more like Jesus everyday.<\/p>\nPrayer:<\/b><\/p>\n
Almighty Father, be glorified! All praise belongs to You our God! Truly Lord, you are the source of all that is good. Fill us with Your light through the gift of the Holy Spirit, so that we may always be able to shine for Jesus. May all that we say, think or do bring glory and praise to You our God! In the mighty name of Jesus, we pray, Amen!<\/p>\n
![\"Lesson](\"https:\/\/wonderfullymadekids.files.wordpress.com\/2013\/11\/lesson-6-part-1.jpg\")
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Fruits of the Spirit: LESSON 6 PART 1 \u2013 Goodness (Matthew 5:16) LESSON: GOODNESS \u2013 Shining for Jesus Memory Verse:\u00a0 \u201cIn the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.\u201d\u00a0 – Matthew 5:16 Bible Lesson: \u201cScripture interprets scripture.\u201d We believe that the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3870,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-container-style":"default","site-container-layout":"default","site-sidebar-layout":"default","disable-article-header":"default","disable-site-header":"default","disable-site-footer":"default","disable-content-area-spacing":"default","footnotes":""},"categories":[22,833,34],"tags":[175,315,320,358,474,499,680,692],"class_list":["post-871","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fruit-of-the-spirit-lessons","category-lesson-6-goodness","category-uncategorized","tag-c-s-lewis","tag-free-bible-lessons","tag-fruits-of-the-spirit-lessons","tag-goodness","tag-let-your-light-shine","tag-matthew-516","tag-scripture-interprets-scripture","tag-shining-for-jesus"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wonderfullymadekids.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/871","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wonderfullymadekids.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wonderfullymadekids.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wonderfullymadekids.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wonderfullymadekids.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=871"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wonderfullymadekids.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/871\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3766,"href":"https:\/\/wonderfullymadekids.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/871\/revisions\/3766"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wonderfullymadekids.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wonderfullymadekids.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wonderfullymadekids.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wonderfullymadekids.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}