Jessica Thompson is a wife, mom, speaker, writer, podcaster, and author of the new devotional study, “How God Loves Us: 40 Days to Discovering His Character in the Fruit of the Spirit“, She joins me on the podcast today to encourage you with a more thoroughly biblical understanding of the fruits of the Spirit than you may have heard taught before. I pray you will be as encouraged by this conversation as I was!
What we Chat about in This Episode
~Jessica’s book, “How God Loves Us: 40 Days to Discovering His Character in the Fruit of the Spirit“, what led her to write it, and what readers can expect
~Not looking at the fruit of the Spirit anymore as a list of things we need to do better, but instead looking at that list as a list of the ways that God has loved us and a list of His character qualities
~How an inner assessment of how we are or are not living out the fruits of the Spirit is not beneficial; what actually helps us grow in these fruits
~What the Holy Spirit teaches us about the goodness of Christ and the goodness of Christ to and for us specifically
~Common misconceptions in the church about the fruits of the Spirit
~How the gospel calls us to not look to ourselves, but to God; how that changes our hearts and our ability to love others
~Understanding that it is the fruit of “the Spirit”, not the fruit of “trying harder”
~Why heart transformation is the key and mere behavior modification will only get us so far
~Particular fruits of the Spirit which have stood out to Jessica personally and been a balm to her soul as she has understood them as the character of God
~God as a joyful God
~The reality that how we view God will be how we parent
~Something Jessica learned herself about the character of God as she was writing this book
~And more!
Resources Mentioned
Offer for a free audiobook and 30 day trial from Audible: www.audibletrial.com/HomeandHearth
Jessica’s new book, “How God Loves Us: 40 Days to Discovering His Character in the Fruit of the Spirit”
Disability and the Church: A Vision for Diversity and Inclusion by Lamar Hardwick
Inspiring Quotes from Jessica:
“Instead of looking at the fruit of the Spirit as a list of things we need to do better, we can look at this list as a list of the ways that God has loved us and what His character is like.”
“I am so passionate about people understanding how much God really, truly does love them. He loves us specifically, personally, and regardless of what happens today, we can know that God loves us and is for us.”
“What changes us is never an inner look or a personal assessment of how we are or are not living up to the standard. What changes us is remembering how Jesus walked the road for us, how God has loved us and provided for us.”
“Even on those days when we are not loving, joyful, kind, or patient, our God still is, and that is His heart for us.”
“So often we fall back into those thoughts of doubting that God is really that good, that He really isn’t holding out on us or barely tolerating us. But Jesus’ whole entire life on this earth was Him giving us good things.”
“The Holy Spirit is Jesus’ PR agent reminding us that He really is that good and that He really does love us that much.”
“We so often take the fruits of the Spirit, make them into a list of things we must do and be in order to be right with God and have righteousness, and fall into the trap of either pride and self-righteousness or the trap of hopeless disgust and despair over how you can’t seem to get it together. Both traps are cases of self-focus, when what the gospel does is tell us to look up, to look at Christ, and when we do, that is what changes our hearts.”
“It’s not about how am I doing, how a I measuring up, where am I. It’s all about Who God is and how you can love others in light of that.”
“If all we needed was a life coach, Jesus didn’t have to come. What we needed was a Savior. We don’t just need a list of rules. What we needed was a goodness from outside us to do what we can’t do. We can’t just ‘try harder’. We need a real heart change from a focus on self to a focus on loving God and loving others.”
Where You Can Find Jessica Online
Website – Jessica Thompson
Instagram – @thejesslou
Twitter – @thejesslou
Podcast – Front Porch with the Fitzes
To Leave a Rating and Review on iTunes
Have you been encouraged or inspired by today’s episode? If so, could I ask a little favor? If you could leave the podcast a rating and review in iTunes, that would be amazing! The more ratings and reviews a podcast receives, the more iTunes shows that podcast to other folks searching for shows to listen to, so by leaving me a rating and review, you truly are partnering with me in this podcast ministry to encourage and help as many women as we possibly can. Thank you so much for taking the time to do that! Here’s how:
If you’re on your computer:
- Access iTunes on your desktop and type Home and Hearth in the search box on the upper right hand corner.
- Click on the podcast photo when it comes up
- Click on “Ratings and Reviews” beneath the podcast title
- Under “Customer Reviews”, click on “Write a Review”
- Click on how many stars you want to rate the podcast and then write out your review and click submit
- You’re done! Thank you so much!!
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- Open the podcasts app
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- Click on the podcast photo when it pops up
- Click on the reviews button near the top middle of the screen
- Scroll down a bit, if needed, until you see “Write a Review” and click on that
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How You Can Listen to the Podcast
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