Guard gentleness

But God’s gentleness is rooted in power June 2, 2025

Galatians 5:22-23 But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!

Matthew 11:29 Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart.

John 13:3-5 Jesus knew that the Father had given him authority over everything and that he had come from God and would return to God. So he got up from the table, took off his robe, wrapped a towel around his waist, and poured water into a basin. …

I love seeing strong people treat others gently. Don’t you? For me, this exhibits true strength, the emotional security that allows them to respect, care for and protect others, rather than indulge a need to show off how powerful they are. It tells me they have experienced and embraced the healing of agape in their own hearts.

Over time, “meekness,” the word the KJV uses to describe this aspect of the fruit of the Spirit, has come to represent weakness rather than strength. But praos (or praus), is rooted in strength and is a fruit of power: the ability to choose a humble position in order to bless others. Praos is the gentleness we see so clearly in Jesus’ life and teachings.

Jesus chose to give up his divine privileges and took the humble position of a slave (Philippians 2:6). “He could have called ten thousand angels,” as the old song says, to free him from the suffering of the cross. He “did not retaliate when he was insulted, nor threaten revenge when he suffered” (1 Peter 2:23). He had the courage to live in poverty, to touch a leper, to defend women, to elevate children, to enjoy the company of “sinners,” to break all kinds of cultural taboos in order to show us what God’s love is like. His gentleness can still melt our defensiveness today.

“The greatest among you must be a servant,” Jesus taught (Matthew 23:11). In his upside-down Kingdom, authority must be used in humility rather than flaunting one’s power over others (Matthew 20:25-27). “For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve others and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:28).

Holy Spirit, please help us to learn from Jesus to use the power of gentleness within agape to bless others as he did. Guard and heal our hearts from the insecurity that generates pride. Generate in us the humble strength that comes from knowing ourselves beloved, our own needs tenderly cared for.

Jesus understands what praos sometimes costs us. “By his wounds you are healed. Once you were like sheep who wandered away. But now you have turned to your Shepherd, the Guardian of your souls” (1 Peter 2:21-25).

Shepherd of my Heart, Sandi Patty

Choose your own adventure

But Jesus heals our vision Lenten question from John #11

John 9:32-38[The formerly blind man told the Jewish leaders] “Ever since the world began, no one has been able to open the eyes of someone born blind. If this man were not from God, he couldn’t have done it.” “You were born a total sinner!” they answered. “Are you trying to teach us?” And they threw him out of the synagogue. When Jesus heard what had happened, he found the man and asked, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” The man answered, “Who is he, sir? I want to believe in him.” “You have seen him,” Jesus said, “and he is speaking to you!” “Yes, Lord, I believe!” the man said. And he worshiped Jesus.

Hmm. Deflecting a legitimate perspective by using contempt. Where have we seen that before?

My seven-year-old grandson recently received from his uncle a set of “choose your own ending” stories. My husband spent an hour with him a few nights ago exploring all the possible conclusions to one set of scary circumstances before finding the one happy ending that could allow Caleb to sleep in peace.

Shutterstock: Sarayut Sridee

I’ve written before on this blog about John 9, one of the most carefully crafted, intriguing chapters in the whole Bible with its intricate word play on the concept of blindness and vision. Since John doesn’t tell us what happened next in the formerly blind man’s life, we can imagine a number of possible outcomes of his rejection by the Jewish leaders when he naively (it seems) spoke truth to power. His vision went far beyond his new experience of physical sight.

Did his parents continue to reject him, to preserve their status in the synagogue?
Did the newly sighted man join the disciples in following Jesus around the countryside? If so, what did this lead to? Successful integration in the church birthed at Pentecost? Martyrdom? A mission to some other country?
What skills other than begging and dormant abilities and passions did he develop?
Did he meet a wonderful woman to marry and create his own family?

Hey, you could start with John 9, invent a past and a future for this man based on historical research, give him relationships with intriguing events and people and write a novel! The theme to explore: What did it mean for a man blind from birth, assumed to be paying the consequence of his own sin (in the womb??) or his parents’ to respond affirmatively to Jesus’ question: Do you believe in the Son of Man?

And what does this question mean to you today, in your circumstances, with your history, your relationships, your fears and expectations for your future? John’s entire Gospel compels our response to this question. What adventure will you choose?

A challenging choice today

But the Spirit’s fruit is always in season

Hosea 1:7 I [the Lord] will show love to the people of Judah. I will free them from their enemies—not with weapons and armies or horses and charioteers, but by my power as the Lord their God.

Zechariah 4:6 It is not by force nor by strength [that God’s plans will succeed], but by my Spirit, says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies.

God spoke these words to and through Hosea and Zechariah at times of challenge and crisis, when it seemed there was no way for God’s people to overcome their enemies and return to peace and blessing.

We need these words today. I need these words today. My personal wellbeing depends on choosing to put my full trust in God’s sovereignty over history and nations and people. His plans will succeed—though not likely the way or in the timing I think best.

Meanwhile, despite my grief as I watch current events hurt people I love, I have the opportunity today, and then tomorrow, and then the next day, to affirm and to stand on God’s promises. And to open myself to the Spirit’s work—his way of doing things—in the garden of my heart, even when pulling out the weeds is painful.

The Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives:

Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

Shutterstock: MVolodymyr

My daughter Valerie reminded our family yesterday of several of Martin Luther King Jr.’s sayings. One that particularly struck me is this: “Let no man pull you so low as to hate him.”

Hatred isn’t the Spirit’s way. It hurts us, and it hurts others. I’m challenged to put my mental, emotional, and spiritual energy into Spirit ways, while trusting God to manage what I can’t control anyway—even when I don’t see what he’s actively doing behind the scenes.

I’m remembering too one of my son’s middle school teachers telling him, “Don’t let people or circumstances rob you of your joy.” Letting myself savor joy—an expression of trust in God, even in the midst of grief—will accomplish more good in my small world than any amount of “warfare.”

It’s the Spirit’s way.

Don’t copy

But God expects US to be light

Isaiah 49:3-4, 6The Lord said to me, “You are my servant, and you will bring me glory.” I [Isaiah] replied, “But my work seems so useless! I have spent my strength for nothing and to no purpose. Yet I leave it all in the Lord’s hand; I will trust God for my reward.” … And now God says, “I will make you a light to the Gentiles, and you will bring my salvation to the ends of the earth.”

Matthew 5:14-16 [Jesus said] “You are the light of the world … Let your good deeds shine out for all to see, so that everyone will praise your heavenly Father.”

Philippians 2:14-16 Do everything without complaining or arguing, so that no one can criticize you. Live clean, innocent lives as children of God, shining like bright lights in a world full of crooked and perverse people, holding firmly to the word of life.

My just-turned-one granddaughter Juliana watches and tries to imitate everything her older sister Liliana does. The second Lili chooses a toy, that’s the one Juju wants. Yesterday Lili climbed into an empty box pretending it was a train car. Of course, Juju immediately had to climb in too, though she had ignored the box until that moment.

It made me think, “Who am I trying to copy? Who sets the standard of behavior for me?”

A confession:

I sometimes get angry and complain about people who don’t know God because they behave like they don’t know God.

How nonsensical is that?

Another confession:

I sometimes feel outrage at people who claim the name of Christ yet speak and live as if they don’t know God’s love and have never taken seriously Jesus’s command to show that love to the world.

But do I look and act any different from the people I judge?

The Lord calls me back, with words like James 1:19-21 and 26, Be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry. “Human anger does not produce the righteousness God desires … If you claim to be religious but don’t control your tongue, you are fooling yourself, and your religion is worthless.”

The conversation between God and Isaiah in chapter 49 is one you, like me, have probably had with God at times of discouragement. But the dialogue becomes more interesting as we continue reading, because it seems God is not talking just to Isaiah, but more profoundly, with his own son, Jesus, the true light to the Gentiles. After all, Simeon prophesied over the infant Jesus, “He is a light to reveal God to the nations” (Luke 2:32).

That’s NOT how Paul and Barnabas interpreted Isaiah 49:6, however! In Acts 13:46-47, they tell a crowd in Antioch of Pisidia, “We will offer the word of God to the Gentiles. For the Lord gave us this command when he said, ‘I have made you a light to the Gentiles, to bring salvation to the farthest corners of the earth.’”

So, it’s a partnership, right? Because it’s the light of Jesus shining in our hearts that we are to reflect to others (2 Corinthians 4:5-7).

Today I’m asking myself, how am I personally doing with being a light and revealing God? If this question doesn’t humble me, nothing will. I invite you, as I am doing today, to read and pray carefully through Romans 12. I think it’s a great description of what living differently looks like.

I’m asking the Lord to shine his light into my soul to reveal my shortcomings, convict me of my need for him, root out my self-righteousness, and fill me with his compassion. I want to imitate the Lord. I want him to be my model. And I want to notice and learn from the ways people in my life reflect his light according to the standards of Romans 12.

Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you … (Romans 12:2)

What will we choose today?

But Jesus accepted the woman’s gift, and knew what it cost her

Matthew 26:6-16 Meanwhile [while Jewish leaders plotted his death], Jesus was in Bethany at the home of Simon … While he was eating, a woman came in with a beautiful alabaster jar of expensive perfume and poured it over his head. The disciples were indignant when they saw this. “What a waste!” they said. “It could have been sold for a high price and the money given to the poor.” But Jesus, aware of this, replied, “Why criticize this woman for doing such a good thing to me? You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me. She has poured this perfume on me to prepare my body for burial. … Then Judas Iscariot, one of the disciples, went to the leading priests and asked, “How much will you pay me to betray Jesus to you?” And they gave him thirty pieces of silver. From that time on, Judas began looking for an opportunity to betray Jesus.

Hebrews 12:15-16 Look after each other so that none of you fails to receive the grace of God. Watch out that no poisonous root of bitterness grows up to trouble you, corrupting many. Make sure that no one is immoral or godless like Esau, who traded his birthright as the firstborn son for a single meal.

If you’ve been following this blog or have read Karis, All I See Is Grace, you know Karis identified closely with the woman in this story, seeing her life as perfume broken and poured out over the Body of Christ, the church.

But today I want to ask a simple question. Today, what choice will you and I make?

Every day we face the choice to offer ourselves to the Lord, pouring out our time, our talent, our treasure to honor him. Or to try to use our special status with God, as his beloved children, for our own benefit, twisting the Gospel into a tool of manipulation or a means of personal gain.

We see this blatantly on television, in politics, and sadly, in churches. In our own lives it may be more subtle, especially if we value the prestige that goes along with appearing godly or spiritual. What it costs us to actually be godly, following Jesus into places where we may suffer criticism and misunderstanding like the woman in this story, is a choice more difficult to make.

Whose approbation do we value most, Jesus’s or other people’s? Do we each have one or two or three people who know what that struggle looks like for us personally, what our specific vulnerabilities are to the enemy’s wiles? Each of us needs someone with whom we are transparent, who can support us in choosing God’s grace.

Because the choice comes to each one of us, whether in big ways or small.