The Fruit of the Spirit: Gentleness
Unless Christians are willing to be humbled, they won’t get the greatest of God’s blessings. Jesus not only taught this, He demonstrated it. He washed the disciples’ feet, He permitted himself to be captured in Gethsemane, to be beaten, reviled, and nailed to a Cross. Phil. 2:8, 9 tell us “He humbled Himself and became obedient to death, even death on a Cross” (MEV). Spiritual power comes through meekness and gentleness.
When we see the greatness of God’s love, we break down and weep—we become tender. Looking at His greatness breaks all the hardness the world would want to put in us.
Why does God want us to be gentle and meek? That is one of the best ways to defend the Gospel. I Pet 3:15 tells us that when anyone asks about our faith, we should give an answer with meekness. The most attractive thing about a Christian testimony is the spirit of meekness it contains. Meekness in our testimony is not the way our voices sound nor the expression on our faces. Meekness is the spirit in which a testimony is shared. The main focus is that God will be exalted in it. We can conquer people by argument, but never convert them by argument. It takes the grace of God to convert a person. If we consider others as valuable, it is easy to be gentle with them as Christ was gentle with all He met.
PR
Category: Spirit, Winter 2018