MID-WEEK MANNA FROM PASTOR NAT’S DESK:
April 9, 2025
THE HOLY SPIRIT’S ‘FRUIT’ OF GENTLENESS IS CHRIST’S OWN GENTLENESS
What, where, when, why, and how is this divine gentleness manifested? The apostle to the Gentiles gives us an example, as revealed in his epistle to the early church at Corinth (all emphasis and words in brackets mine):
“Now I Paul myself, BESEECH YOU BY THE MEEKNESS AND GENTLENESS OF CHRIST, who in presence am base among you, but being absent am bold toward you.
“But I beseech you, that I may not be bold when I
am present with you with that confidence wherewith I think to be bold against some, which think of us as if we walked in the flesh.
“For though we WALK IN the flesh, we do not WAR WITH the flesh: for the weapons of our
WARFARE are not carnal, but [spiritually] mighty through God to the PUTTING DOWN OF STRONGHOLDS [that is], casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ; and having in a readiness to revenge ALL DISOBEDIENCE, when YOUR OBEDIENCE is fulfilled.” 2 Cor. 10: 1-6, KJV.
This divine gentleness is demonstrated and manifested in and with the “boldness” of carrying out a “mighty warfare,” not against “flesh and blood,” especially against fellow believers of “the household of faith,” but “against wickedness in high places,” against the carnal “strongholds” of foolish, vain, and sinful “imaginations” and every “high and mighty thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God. . .”
“Real refinement of thought and manner is better learned in the school of the divine Teacher THAN BY ANY observance of SET RULES. His love pervading the heart gives to the CHARACTER those refining touches that FASHION IT in the semblance of His own [character]. This education imparts a heaven-born DIGNITY AND SENSE OF PROPRIETY. It gives sweetness of disposition and a GENTLENESS OF MANNER that can never be equaled by the SUPERFICIAL polish of fashionable society.”
E. G. White, My Life Today, p. 191.
To be continued next MWM, God willing. Bless all, NMF.