Humility is not the end of spiritual growth and a fruitful life, but its beginning and ongoing condition.

The fruit of the Holy Spirit is not a laundry list of impossible virtues but miraculous manifestations of an ordinary life sourced by an extraordinary God. 

The secret to the fruit of the Spirit is in the source. We must reorient our focus from the fruits to the roots—who is the Spirit of God—and this guards us against striving.

If we are to understand the ways of God we must be taken deep into the realities of earth and sky, soil and seed, of cultivation and irrigation, plowing and pruning, and yes of reaping and harvest.

 To live in Christ is just plain sense. To try to live some other way is plain nonsense.

The notion that anyone might be "just a layperson" is nothing short of tragic.