If Jesus had a SLAMBOOK.

I don't normally write blog posts like this and I'm not exactly sure how this one will turn out. 

I felt like The Lord laid something on my heart a few weeks ago. 

Do you all remember having Slam books in school?  I think the fad started when SweetValley High published a book about it in their series. 

  It become a craze and soon everyone had their own slam book. 

What is a slam book?

1. A slam book in United States schools is a notebook (commonly the spiral-bound type) which is passed among junior high school students. The keeper of the book starts by posing a question (which may be on any subject) and thebook is then passed round for each contributor to fill in their own answer to the question.

   
   

   

   
   

   
   

A slam book sounds well enough and kind of fun. 

That's not what always happens though. It usually turns up hurting someone's feelings. For example, some of the subjects were:

*Best Dressed

*Prettiest Hair

*Most Prettiest

*Snobbiest

*Meanest

*Most Ugliest

*Most Dumbest

You would write your subject on the top of each page. Then you would pass it around to your classmates and they would write someone's name under each subject whom they thought was most fitting to that subject. 

This was usually done anonymously so no one would know who wrote what. 

Imagine how happy a person would be when they seen their name under the subjects such as Best dressed or Most Prettiest. 

Then imagine how the other people felt when they seen their name listed under Most Ugly or Most dumb. I'm sure it didn't feel very good. 

Pretty soon most schools banned Slam books because it was causing so many problems. 

All this came to my mind one morning when my pastor was up preaching. His sermon was about meekness. Meekness is one of the fruits of the spirit. I got to thinking about if I was a meek person or not.  I wasn't happy with the results. Probably no one I knew thought of me as meek. I'm sure abnoxious or loud came to mind before meekness ever would. For some reason that message got to me. Like it should of course, but it's really been eating at me. 

During that message the "Slam book" came to my mind. 

I imagined the different fruits of the spirit listed as a subject on each page of a Slam book. 

Love

Joy

Peace

Long suffering

Gentleness

Goodness

Faith 

Meekness

Temperance

Would any of my friends, family, church members, or neighbors think to put my name under any of those subjects???

Then I thought about the 17 works of the flesh. The subjects would be:

Adultery

Fornication

Uncleanness

Lasciviousness

Idolatry

Witchcraft

Hatred

Variance

Emulations

Wrath

Strife

Seditions

Heresies

Envying 

Murders

Drunkeness

Revellings 

 

Of course some I'm pretty sure my name wouldn't be there. I'm mean I've never tasted alcohol or murdered anyone. But what about hatred or envying?  What about wrath or strife?  I'm pretty sure we are all guilty at some point in our lives. I don't want to find my name in anyone's slambook for any of the works of flesh. I'd feel a lot better seeing my name on the fruit of the spirit subjects though. 

Well we all know that Jesus doesn't have a slam book. He does have the Book of Life though. That's a book I want to know my name is written in. That's the only way I'll make Heaven my home is to have my name written in God's special book. 

I will continue to pray and ask god to help me acquire the Fruit of the Spirit and resist the works of the flesh. 

Galatians 5:16-17King James Version (KJV)

16 This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.

17 For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.

I hope y'all enjoyed this post. Hopefully it made some sense. If it didn't help you, it's helped me. 

Feel free to leave a comment.