Try A Lot of Gentleness

The truth of the matter is most of us can’t handle the truth straight, like our medicine we require a little sugar coating to make the yucky but effective stuff go down easier. For many to attempt to take it without it could choke us. This is the sentiment of so many scriptures that guide us in this area of being gentle. Letting our speech be with grace, seasoned with salt. (Col. 4:6) For many years my thought process has been to avoid taking the medicine if it couldn’t be sugar coated and this is not the will of God either. Equally as out of balance is to apply too much sugar such that it drowns out the medicine needed and thus your therapeutic purpose is diluted and becomes ineffective.

 The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life; and he that winneth souls is wise. (Pro 11:30) 

I am sure we can all agree that the fruit of the Spirit is definitely in the category of righteous and when we are matured in it the evidence of it is revealed in what it produces. This is why gentleness is so important, if you yank a piece of fruit off a tree you stand the risk of bruising it.  If you weren’t planning on eating it right away you just accelerated its ripening state and risk a greater chance of wasting its potential.   While Jud 1:23 warns us that there will be many that will be pulled out of the fire; hating even the garments spotted from the flesh there are many more who won’t have to be bruised to be set free.

But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy. (Jas 3:17)  

This last word in James is important to note and so often while trying to pull the mote in our brother’s eye we become blind to the beam that exist in our own. (Mat 7:3) This ought not to be, but rather we should consider ourselves whenever we speak to others. We should apply the same gentleness with them, considering ourselves, recognizing our own frailness and susceptibility to sin. (Gal. 6:1)

The outflow of a gentle heart is compassion. Compassion comes naturally to those who recognize that they were sinners who have been saved by grace. Those who have a forgetful mind that all their paths are not right and their ways are not straight foolishly believe their life of piety has exempted them from the need of an atoning sacrifice to rescue them from their sin. (Rom. 3:23) This is how you can have a self-righteous Pharisee who looks down upon a bleeding hearted Publican. (Luk 18:9-14) What the Pharisee failed to understand is YHVH doesn’t care about all the good we do until we confess and forsake all the wrong we have done and acknowledge, accept, and embrace the sacrifice of the Son He gave. We must first be forgiven before we can be rewarded. Repenting is our part, and as we do our part, forgiving is God’s part and He is always willing to do His part, waiting even. (2 Pet 3:9)   This is a revelation that Peter fully had come to understand about YHVH. As it was Peter that had to have the vision of unclean beasts and the confrontation of Paul later on to understand the heart of God for those who were not in the natural bloodline of Abraham. Like many of us it took a few encounters with truth to move him fully into the plan of God.

That is why gentleness is one of those significant fruits that has its seasonal benefits. When we experience it in its due season we can indeed taste and see the goodness of the Lord.

Patience Has A Perfect Work

But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing. (Jas 1:4)

When you really think of it joy, peace, patience and all of the rest of the fruit of the Spirit can only work by the fruit of love.  As it takes love to have patience, this is how a mother can withstand the constant and incessant cries of her baby feverishly looking for the cause of the eye leak until a solution is found.  Love is the vehicle by which the others can spring forth and blossom.  Today we will discuss the importance of letting patience have its perfect work in your life.

In our got to have it now generation. patience feels like pulling teeth, real slow with rusty pliers.  Yet the scripture above points out the importance of understanding that patience has a work to do within us.  Work as we know it can take at least 65 years before we finally retire, and in that time we are expected to save or accumulate enough wealth that will allow us to enjoy our retirement years.  How we spend those years are entirely up to us, but there is a penalty assigned for wasting time.  However, if we remain faithful and maintain our focus on Yah in due season we reap our reward if we faint not.

Patience is what is required to understand the ways of YHVH, as an impulsive person reveals a lack of trust in YHVH.  This is what Moses tapped into, this was how he could be entitled to being called humble.  Because his patience when the people was tempting to drive him crazy was his full reliance and close relationship with YHVH.  Patience is a part of the package just like it’s a part of the fruit.   Studying His word and praying for understanding of how to live out His word is how we allow longsuffering, another word for patience to have her perfect work in us.  Because we build our faith that the same God who brought out our forefathers from the clutches of death has redeemed us from having to fear death through His Anointed Son.  Then we realize we no longer have to fear death, but rather fear the One who can put both body and soul into the fiery furnace forever and ever.

And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. (Mat 10:28)

Longsuffering is exactly the way it sounds it means we are to suffer long and clearly having to wait, deny ourselves, deprive ourselves of anything is challenging.  But anything worth having is worth waiting for, I can’t think of anything being more valuable then the reward that is available for those of us who patiently await the coming of the Lord and His glorious appearing, can you?  What makes death scary is that it is apart of the unknown for the world.  However, for the children of the Most High it is a gateway to our reward if we are found faithful.

So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?
(1Co 15:54-55)

This is the peace that every believer can walk in knowing and though eternal life is the beginning it is not the whole of salvation otherwise we wouldn’t have anything to workout.

Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. (Php 2:12)

We have a mission that has been given to us as believers that if we are on it God provides the roadmap to the goal.  This is why Paul having been afflicted in this life can have patience through troubled waters knowing he would come out on the other side because he understood that he can’t leave till mission complete.  He understood patience had a perfect work yet to be complete in him.  Abraham who could wait on the Lord until he was 100 years of age to have the son promised to him through Sarah could trust that the promise that he wouldn’t see in his lifetime concerning his seed would be fulfilled.    Consider Job?  We are told to have the patience of Job in James 5:11 a man who endured the struggle and the hardship of losing all but his life, yet still held on to the Lord in the valley of the shadow of death.  Patience like faith is not something you need until you need it.  For instance I don’t need faith to believe for something that I have.  I don’t need patience to achieve something that is already possessed.

So what is the work of patience?  Above are examples of patience, but lets really examine its meaning because that is key to how you get it.  The definition indicates its not something you master over night.  It’s not something that matures instantly but like any fruit its through work, toil, and time that it blossoms and matures.  Like faith, patience requires consistency, staying on guard and not giving up on following the path that leads to life.  It requires you not becoming weary in doing well through the process, but staying on task and fully vested.

I am still finding areas where I have to work on this in me, and what I am finding out is what patience is not, and that is impulsive.  When we fill hurried or pressed to make a decision we are easily in danger of falling prey to impulsive action.  This action is the result of moving before God in a given situation rather then waiting on him.  Patience is what is produced with consistent reliance on God in every situation not just in tight ones.  This is not to be confused with procrastination or complacency because one thing that both Abraham and Moses teaches us in their life is that in order to move in the will of God you have to be willing to move when he says move, and that moving is not always going to be when the environment is conducive to it.  It is clear that Moses decision to deliver the people from Egypt was not conducive to the need Pharaoh had to enslave them.  It was terribly inconvenient for Egypt, but right on time for the Father.  This is the difference between impulsivity and faith, impulsiveness is moved by circumstances and faith is moved by the spoken word of the Almighty.  When the Almighty moves us whether it takes forty years or forty days it doesn’t matter we will be ready to move forward, and we will have patience to wait until our change comes.

If a man die, shall he live again? all the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change come.  (Job 14:14)

The Hebrew word for patience is “YaChaR” and when you put the characters together they paint the picture of the “work of the outside man”.  Think of a Master Builder who may have a blueprint from day one of construction, but like Noah the fruition of the blueprint can take years to complete.  Both faith and patience is required to see the construction to its inevitable end. Where are we in our walk with YHVH?  This is why we are admonished not to give up, lose heart, to faint not, because the process of patience having her perfect work in us will not be an overnight success, a winning lottery ticket away, but through hard work, persistence, and perseverance we see the faithfulness of God in the challenges, through the trials.  He is maturing us and as tempting as it may be to take a shortcut, the shortcut will cause you to miss the blessing.  Lot took the shortcut, the path already taken the road already paved because convenience doesn’t require any commitment from you.  But the lesson we should take from Lot is that foregoing the process can cost you your family, and what it does salvage becomes perverted.

And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not. (Gal 6:9)

The next fruit of the Spirit we will discuss will show us how to Try A Lot Of Gentleness.  While these lessons I had hoped to complete before Pentecost 2018, its truth is always right on time.  If you are finding yourself challenged with these fruit in your life, remember we are admonished that in all our getting to get an understanding.  Our lack of understanding can cause us to lose heart in the struggles of life and become weak in exhibiting strength in this fruitful venture.  Love you all and may YHVH richly bless every reader.

The Ugly Truth of American History

This video provides some facts that we just simply didn’t get in the history books. I encourage you to watch. Knowledge is powerful. I realize the topic is one that most of us would prefer to leave buried and hidden, but if we are ever going to understand the impact our past has on our present its going to require getting an understanding about the root of the sin of this nation and the biblical truth that the love of money indeed is the root of all sorts of evil.