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Two Kinds of Sweat

Did you know there are two kinds of sweat glands? There are! If you look it up on Wikipedia, you'll find there are the eccrine glands which are pretty much all over your body, and the apocrine glands which are in specific places on your body (like your armpits). 

Eccrine glands help regulate body temp. 

Apocrine glands "produce an odorless oily, opaque secretion which then gains its characteristic odor from bacterial decomposition."

Why am I even talking about this?! Well, I read the following verses this morning and my mind went there. Read what Paul wrote in Colossians 2:9-10 (CSB) and I'll try to explain my thinking.

For the entire fullness of God’s nature dwells bodily in Christ, and you have been filled by him, who is the head over every ruler and authority. 

Think about it, we swim but the water we swim in never enters our body (unless we open our mouths and swallow it). But we sweat when we swim. Why? 

Sweat helps regulate our body temperature.

Sweat is actually good for what ails us.

Those who are in Christ have been filled with all the fullness of Christ (His Holy Spirit). He protects us from being infiltrated by what surrounds us (unless we open our mouths and swallow it). 

Holy Spirit fruit comes out of those who are in Christ. Holy Spirit fruit has nine characteristics: love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control. These come out of us like sweat comes out of our eccrine glands. This fruit is good for us. 

The fragrance of Christ follows us when we sweat Holy Spirit fruit. 

Warning! The sweat of our sinful fruit may not stink at first, but its stink will soon follow us around like a bad odor. This is a personal stink we don't even smell, but you can be very sure those around us do.

I'm so thankful for the gift of Holy Spirit who is in all those of us who are in Christ. I'm praying I (and you) will keep our mouths shut. May we stop swallowing the sinfulness around us as truth (stop believing the lies of the Enemy), so we will sweat more and more Holy Spirit fruit and less and less stinky sinful fruit.

Digging Deeper: John 14:18-20; John 15:5; Galatians 5: 19-23; Ephesians 2:1-10; Ephesians 3:16-21


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