Galatians 5:19-21 Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness,… Self-pre-occupation, self-breedings, self.interest, self-love — these are the reasons why you go jarring against your fellows. Turn your eyes off yourself; forget your own pet schemes, the hopes you are always nursing to yourself, the self-importance that you hug. Forget them, throw them aside, push through them. Look up, and out! There is a larger world outside you, brimming over with far other hopes than yours, illumined by a vaster sun, travelling to some far historic goal. Look up, and out upon it! It has its interests, its purposes, its ends, which it is your glad privilege to learn, and, by learning, to obey and follow. Give it your heart, and it will show you its own. Take its road, and it will, then, take yours. Look up, and out! There are men, your brothers, and women, your sisters; they have needs that you can aid. Listen for their confidences; keep your heart wide open to their calls, and your hands alert for their service. Learn to give, and not to take; to drown your own hungry wants in the happiness of lending yourself to fulfil the interests of those nearest or dearest. Break through your own moody musings, and run out abroad, from these closed and darkened chambers of self-consideration — out into the wide and teeming earth, where not your scheme, but God's great hope, is working out its world-wide triumph. Look up and out, from this narrow, cabined self of yours, and you will jar no longer, you will fret no more, you will provoke no more, you will quarrel no more; but you will, to your own glad surprise, find the secret of "the meekness and the gentleness of Jesus"; and "the peace of God which passeth all understanding" will drop down like dew upon your happy-hearted days; and the fruits of the Spirit will all bud and blossom from out of your life — "love, joy, peace, gentleness, meekness, goodness, long-suffering, faith, temperance." (Canon Scott Holland.) Parallel Verses KJV: Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, |
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