"Both the Beatitudes and the fruit of the Spirit tell us similar things."

A thought by Daniel Fusco, from his book, Crazy Happy (p. 21). The Crown Publishing Group, Kindle Edition. (Click on the book title to go to Amazon to buy the book.)

That is very interesting.

Daniel says, "Both are not explanations of what we do but of who we are. Both explain the unique qualities of what it means to be given the gift of life in Jesus."

A peach tree.

He goes on, "Think about a fruit tree. Fruit is born in its own time, simply because of the tree it stems from. Jesus said we will know a tree by its fruit. He also said God is glorified by us bearing fruit, and that is impossible unless we abide in him.

"In other words, fruit can’t produce itself. Its growth is a by-product of its ability to find its life from the tree itself. This is exactly what Jesus told us in John 15:4. So when you put the Beatitudes together with the fruit of the Spirit, you find that, as a pairing, they give us an absolutely stunning view of what a beautiful life is made of."

He continues, "Think about the fruit of the Spirit. . . : love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control. Almost everyone agrees that this list contains qualities of a crazy happy life. But when we link these traits up with the Beatitudes, we start to learn how and where that fruit is cultivated. These nine pairings are like movements of a symphony for us to explore and soak in.

"One of the greatest areas of tension for us is we all want to live happy lives, but we have a nagging feeling that our lives aren’t what they could be. So we try to live better. We try to make life more beautiful. And with every attempt to cultivate more beauty, we continually find ourselves not quite there.

"So the hamster wheel keeps spinning.

"You might be thinking, Fusco, it’s not that hard to find beauty in life. You just need to look for it, and you’ll see it all around you. I hear you. It’s been said that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. This is fundamentally true. Each of us sees beauty in different things. But God sees certain things as beautiful as well. And what he thinks becomes our road map. When we align our ideas about beauty with that of our Creator and Sustainer, true beauty emerges."

Daniel then says, "I have a sneaking suspicion . . . you want your life to be truly beautiful. You want to live crazy happy. So do I. That is also why I needed to write this book in the first place. I wanted to find the road map to a crazy happy life. I wanted to learn how to cultivate a truly beautiful life.

And that is what we want too, isn't it?

Yes, yes!

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