%%USERNAME%%    %%ACCWORDS%% %%ONOFF%% |
 |
Bible studies |
| Dear God, Thank you for this new week and for allowing us to live and see another day. You are so good. Help us to see your gentleness in this study, and teach us what we need to know about being gentle. In Jesus’s name, Amen Galatians 5:22-23 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, 23 Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law. When you think of gentleness, what do you think about it? Some people see it as a weakness. I see it as softness and compassion. This is another personality trait of Almighty God. Do you think of God as gentle? 🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌 Gentleness defined: 1. the quality of being kind, tender, or mild-mannered. 2. softness of action or effect; lightness. 🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌 Gentleness As I began studying this subject, I couldn't help but feel in my spirit there was something so much more to this than a physical gentleness. I looked through several devotions online. Many of them were pretty much the same. This feeling of something more just kept nagging at me. I prayed and ask God to show me what it was. I began to look into a few different things as I felt led by the Spirit. I want to share some of those things with you here. One of my first thoughts led me to the question, “What is Spiritual Gentleness?” Hmm! That was a good question. These are fruits of the Spirit. It would make sense to think of them spiritually. Gentleness includes a lot of things. In one of the definitions above it is considered being kind. I don't know why, but I have never thought of kindness and gentleness as interchangeable. I have always thought of them as two entirely different things. I will probably do a study on kindness later. Gentleness is also humility which is another fruit we will be studying later (meekness). It is putting others before self. It is being kind, compassionate, and considerate towards others. It is self restraint. Being gentle is being polite and mild-mannered. It restrains us from seeking revenge. It is not threatening or violent. It is careful. It is handling with care so as to not cause harm or injury. Spiritual Gentleness is not just handling physical needs, items, and situations with carefulness. It is caring about other people's whole beings, body, soul, and spirit. It cares about other people's relationship with God. It cares if their soul is bound for hell or not. It cares for the inner needs and conditions of others. This brought me to thinking about religious zeal. I will be discussing this in our study too. How many times have we been religiously zealous to other people's harm because we failed to be gentle? How many times have we been harmed by it? When we are gentle, we are intentionally being kind, compassionate, and humble towards others especially when they are struggling and facing difficulty. I hope that we can all learn more and become more Christlike as we learn what Gentleness, the fruit of the Spirit, is all about. What are some of your first thoughts about Gentleness? Religious zeal What is zeal? It is great energy or enthusiasm in pursuit of a cause or an objective. What I mean by religious zeal is a passionate pursuit of Christianity, the religion. Let me give you a couple examples of this; Peter cutting off someone’s ear when Jesus was arrested and Saul, before he was known as the Apostle Paul, when he was persecuting followers of Christ. As children, when we are learning right and wrong and how to interact with others, we are very quick to tell on someone when we think they are wrong. We have to be taught to not be tattle-tales. In a way, this is how we are as new Christians. We may passionately pursue going to church, learning how to pray, and learning what sin is and how to avoid it. It is easy for us to point the fingers at others. It is easy to be self-righteous. As we mature into adults, we begin to learn how interact with others respectfully. We learn how to confront people when we believe they are wrong. We learn how to disagree without arguing and fighting, well at least some of us. As we mature as Christians, we learn how to pursue peace while dealing with unpopular issues or disagreements. The fruits of the Spirit become more evident in us. We don't rush into judgement and anger, but calmly and gently speak to others. James 1:19-20 ▼ It takes a great deal of inner strength, commitment, and willingness to be changed by the Holy Spirit. We must be empowered by God to live out the fruits of the Spirit, including gentleness. Discernment, Not Judgement Gentleness addresses failure and sin with discernment and not judgement. Gentleness does not use anger, shame, fear, or manipulation to accomplish God's will. Gentleness takes time, quietness, patience, stillness, and trust. It takes love and endearment. In fact, if all the other fruits of the Spirit operate with the fruit of love, the Bible says that perfect love casts out all fear. 1 John 4:18 ▼ Gentleness is produced by a softened heart abiding in the love of Jesus. Ezekiel 36:26-27 ▼ Be bold for Christ, but be humble and gentle at the same time. We must be in tune with the Holy Spirit and informed by the teachings of Jesus. We must be gentle when interacting and witnessing to others. 2 Corinthians 10:1 ▼ Gentleness is knowing people’s Salvation and Spiritual condition is far more important than our pride. 2 Timothy 2:24-26 ▼ The Bible says when we find someone in fault, those of us who are spiritual should seek to restore them in meekness. Some translations say to restore in the spirit of gentleness. NIV is one of them. While we remain gentle and humble, we should be careful not to be caught in error ourselves. Galatians 6:1-2 ▼ We must be careful how we speak to people. We can not talk down to them in judgement and expect them to not get defensive about it. We must use what they call constructive criticism. This is telling someone how you think they can improve without pointing the finger. It focuses on the problem and solution rather than the person with whom you have a problem. Proverbs 15:1-4 ▼ We must consider ourselves when we talk to others about their faults and when we are sharing our faith. We have to remember where we have come from and what kind of person we were before we were saved. 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 ▼ We must share the gospel in the spirit of meekness and gentleness. Also, now would be a good time to consider the question, “If you, yourself, we're put on trial for being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you?” 1 Peter 3:15-16 ▼ We must first address this issues within ourselves before we can go correcting everyone else. We must remain humble so we can be gentle. Matthew 7:1-5 ▼ Here is a link to help you learn how to give good constructive criticism. https://personalexcellence.co/blog/constructive-criticism/ People are drawn to Christ by gentleness, not cruelty and condemnation. Think about some of your own experiences. What makes you defensive? What prompts you to make positive changes? How do you want to be spoken to? Humble Is Gentle Gentleness is not prideful. It places our human strength under God's guidance. Gentleness recognizes God's thoughts and ways are higher than our own. God is Sovereign. By Sovereign, I mean he possesses the Supreme and ultimate power. He is all powerful and all knowing. There is no God like ours. Isaiah 55:8-11 ▼ Gentleness knows we are not good because of our own effort. It knows we are only good through the grace of God. It is putting ourselves in our proper place. It is putting others before ourselves. Titus 3:1-7 ▼ Gentleness causes us to be teachable and not arrogant. Even Jesus was teachable and not puffed up. As we give peace and gentleness to others, we will receive it in return. Gentleness is not selfish. It was meant to be given to others. We can be gentle by putting others first. We need to have more compassion and judge less. God Is Gentle God is the ultimate good shepherd. Shepherding requires gentleness. Isaiah 40:10-11 ▼ God has all the power in the universe. If he wasn't gentle with us, he would harm us. Psalms 18:35 ▼ Jesus is gentle and humble too. Mattew 11:28-30 ▼ God wants us to be humble like he is. Our words have power. He has given us spiritual power over evil as well. We must be careful to not use the power God has given us in a cruel, rash, or incorrect way. Proverbs 18:19-21 ▼ Practicing Gentleness Gentleness will sometimes take courage and sacrifice. It may be grown and cultivated through difficulty and practice. We need to put on a heart of compassion. Colossians 3:12-13 ▼ This passage in 1 Peter 3 is mostly aimed toward women, but I would think it would be of great price to God for men to also have a humble and gentle spirit, especially since we know that Jesus did too. 1 Peter 3:3-4 ▼ Being humble and gentle is wise for both men and women. James 3:13 ▼ Jesus came to save lives and not to destroy them. This is definitely something we want to keep in mind when communicating and interacting with other people. Luke 9:56 ▼ We need to be gentle in word and deed. Are the thing we are doing and saying edifying others? (To edify is to improve or instruct morally or intellectually.) Are we speaking and acting while demonstrating the grace of God? We all come short of the glory of God at times. We are all either heading to heaven or bound for Hell. We must remain gentle with humility. Ephesians 4:11-16 ▼ Remember, what comes out of your mouth reveals what is in your heart. Are you producing the fruit of the Spirit or the fruit of the flesh? It starts with what is in your heart. We must make sure we keep our hearts right with God at all times. Luke 6:45 ▼ We serve a loving, wonderful, and gentle God. He doesn't desire for anyone to die in their sins. He desires for everyone to be saved. Be careful in your zeal for the Lord to not crush, mame, or injure others. Remember where you have come from. Be gentle. Show God's mercy, grace, and forgiveness. Show his perfect love to others. Ezekiel 33:11-20 ▼ Resources ▼ Jesus is my permanent anchor!   |
View Portfolio
Visit Notebook
Send Gift Points
Awards
Badges
Send Email
Community Newsfeed
General Discussion
Sponsored Items
Book of Trinkets
Static Items
Books
Groups
Interactive Stories
Audio
Campfire Creatives
Community Notes
Crossword Puzzles
Documents
Folders
Images
In & Outs
Madlibs
Photo Albums
Polls
Product Reviews
Quizzes
Survey Forms
Web Pages
Word Searches
