Cool?

I was reading a magazine the other day, (for the sake of not getting sued, I won’t mention the name!! ☺) It had an article in it entitled “Hip” in which it showed you everything that you need to be cool in the world we live in today…
According to this magazine, the things I need are as follows:

This bicycle:


An apartment in this building:


This bag:


This particular brand and bottle of water:


And the list continues… These are the things that the world around us is telling us we NEED, the things that we can’t do without, the things that we DESERVE and owe to ourselves to have.

But what does God say? What is God’s ‘check-list’ of the things that we “need”? In the New Testament, Paul lists the things that we as Christians should have:

“Love, joy, peace, patience,
kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
gentleness and self-control”
Galatians 5:22-23

Maybe these things won’t draw turn heads as we walk along the street, maybe we won’t be upheld in the eyes of this world as a celebrity or a trend-setter because of them, but I’m thinking that maybe this isn’t such a bad thing…
The things from the first list are all things that we can buy with money, but they are also things that are (as the article suggests) “Hip” right now. In a month or so these things will be “out of style”. The second list, these nine attributes (known as the fruits of the spirit) may not win us awards, but we can be assured that they aren’t going to go out of style! What they can do is help us walk closer to the heartbeat of God, see people through his eyes and keep our minds focused on Him and His ideals.

I’m not sure about you, but I think that’s better than a bike.