Fruit of Goodness – Wed – 21-06-30

Daily Spark,

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Have you ever read a self-improvement book? Some of the current titles are Self-Love Workbook for Women, Good Vibes, Good Life, and the classic How to Win Friends and Influence People. I did some research on Amazon and found there are 80,000 titles in the Self Help category. Wow! People really want to improve themselves!

And, people have been interested in self-improvement for quite a while. Did you know the very first self-improvement book in modern times was a book titled Self-Help written by Samuel Smiles and published in 1859. That’s before the U.S. Civil War.1

The market for self-improvement is huge! If you include books, other products, and seminars by motivational speakers, the market in the United States is $11 billion.2 Like I said, people want to improve themselves. But think about it – is the market so big because all those books work, or is it big because people keep trying different things that don’t work? I wonder. Rather than self-improvement, maybe we need power from outside ourselves.

2 Thessalonians 1:11 says, “With this in mind, we constantly pray for you, that our God may count you worthy of his calling, and that by his power he may fulfill every good purpose of yours and every act prompted by your faith.”(NIV) If we want to develop goodness, then we need God’s power — his Spirit. He is the source of improvement in our character!

  1. “Self-help book,” Wikipedia, last updated October 22, 2020, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-help_book
  2. “The U.S. Market for Self-improvement Products & Services, 2003-2023 – Market Size & Growth, Trends, In-Depth Profiles of 60 Top Motivational Speakers, List of the Top 100 Infomercials,” Research And Markets, March 3, 2020, https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2020/03/03/1994097/0/en/The-U-S-Market-for-Self-improvement-Products-Services-2003-2023-Market-Size-Growth-Trends-In-Depth-Profiles-of-60-Top-Motivational-Speakers-List-of-the-Top-100-Infomercials.html

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Bumper music “Landing Place” performed by Mark July, used under license from Shutterstock.