Thursday 22 November 2012

Humility and Gentleness

Eph 4:1-2
 As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. 2 Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.
NIV

Paul in this Bible verse urges us to live lives worthy of who we really are or who we are called to be. Let me say that the reason it was necessary for Paul to write this letter was because there is a great possibility of not living a life worthy of the calling to which we have been called. There is a possibility of forgetting who we really are in the lord and trying to blend into this world system that is inimical to the advancement of our true nature.
God has made you and me priests and kings, we are looked up to first by the principalities and power; the spiritual realm that does not submit to God, they want see if we will live a life that is any different from the people under their bondage. Secondly, the world wants to learn from us.
This life of righteousness and Holiness that God wants us to live can only be lived by those to whom the grace has been given. It is only those of us who have been endued with grace from God that can live a Holy life. Holiness is the nature of God.
Paul gives us the first steps to living this life (as those who have received a divine nature and who are the only ones who can benefit in the holy nature) he tells us to be completely humble and gentle.
Humility and gentleness are virtues that even though you have been given the capacity to have, you can chose to switch them on or switch them off. Paul urges us to be perfectly humble and gentle.
These two are the keys to living the life that God has called you to live on the earth because they are like thresholds that if you surmount, you will  noticed that you are living a life of the Spirit.
Before you can be humble, you will have conquered the threshold of love and charity, humility is as a result of true love for God and your neighbor. When you truly love someone, you forget who or what you are before the person, you will not even notice how willing you are to serve the person.
The reason why a president can babysit a child and even tie his shoe lace is most likely because that child is His child or grandchild who he loves…
When a man is perfectly humble, it is because of the natural outworking of the love he or she has.
Secondly, gentleness is another threshold in the department of self-control which is the second pillar of the fruit of the spirit- every manifestation of the fruit of the spirit is either an outworking of love or self-control.
It takes self-control to be perfectly gentle.
Go out today knowing that you have already received the nature and have the benefit of being holy (a benefit that not many have) and focus on attaining the thresholds of perfect humility and perfect gentleness.
The reason God tells us to be Holy is because He is Holy; Holiness is His nature and we have the benefit to have received this nature.
Prayer: Father, give me the grace to be holy, for you are Holy. Amen