TEEN TREE 
OF LIFE
THE FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT
Part 8
July 14, 201 9
Before you begin, ask yourself a very important question: Do you believe that Jesus Christ died on The Cross for all of your sins? If you answered yes, you will need to be sure that you are filled with The H oly Spirit. How do you do this? You name your sins to God The Father in His Son’s Name. This is called rebound. As a Christian, you must rebound any time you sin. This is taught in 1JOHN 1:9: If we confess [name] our sins [directly to God], He [God] is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Now, if you have never believed that Jesus Christ died on The Cross for all of your sins, all you have to do is say to yourself that you believe in Him and you are saved! The Bible verse which teaches us this is ACTS 16:31: “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.”
The eighth Fruit of The Spirit is gentleness. In Greek it’s the word prautes which is pronounced prah-oh- tace – with the emphasis on the middle syllable. It means gentleness or humility. Gentleness is one of the most important qualities of the Fruit of The Spirit because it’s the complete opposite of arrogance.
As we have learned (see the Teen Trees – Dec 30, 2018 – Jan 5, 2019) arrogance is a seriously important sin because it’s a major contradiction to God’s Pre-Designed Plan for our lives. It’s also the primary reason we fail to execute His Plan. Satan was the first creature to commit the sin of arrogance. Many people who are Christians don’t know this but Satan’s plan is very specifically spelled out in the Bible in ISA 14:14: “I will make myself like the Most High God.” The sin of arrogance – which happens to be the first sin ever committed – is magnified in EZE 28:11‑19 (The Message Bible): God’s Message came to me: “Son of man, raise a funeral song over the king of Tyre. Tell him, A Message from God, the Master: “You had everything going for you. You were in Eden, God’s garden. You were dressed in splendor, your robe studded with jewels: Carnelian, peridot, and moonstone, beryl, onyx, and jasper, Sapphire, turquoise, and emerald, all in settings of engraved gold. A robe was prepared for you the same day you were created. You were the anointed cherub. I placed you on the mountain of God. You strolled in magnificence among the stones of fire. From the day of your creation you were sheer perfection . . . and then imperfection—evil!—was detected in you. In much buying and selling you turned violent, you sinned! I threw you, disgraced, off the mountain of God. I threw you out—you, the anointed angel-cherub. No more strolling among the gems of fire for you! Your beauty went to your head. You corrupted wisdom by using it to get worldly fame. I threw you to the ground, sent you sprawling before an audience of kings and let them gloat over your demise. By sin after sin after sin, by your corrupt ways of doing business, you defiled your holy places of worship. So I set a fire around and within you. It burned you up. I reduced you to ashes. All anyone sees now when they look for you is ashes, a pitiful mound of ashes. All who once knew you now throw up their hands: ‘This can’t have happened! This has happened!’”
Arrogance is snooty self‑respect. It’s total blindness to God’s Grace. The Bible covers a great deal about God’s Grace because it’s so extremely amazing and vital to our Christian walk! 1PET 5:10 is part of a letter which the apostle Peter wrote to Christians who were scattered throughout the Roman world at the time he was writing. Look at how he refers to them in 1PET 2:11: Beloved, I urge you as aliens and strangers to abstain from fleshly lusts which wage war against the soul. These “aliens” had been going through various trials and illnesses. So, his letter was written to empower these Christians by teaching them about God’s Grace. In 1PET 5:10, he writes: After you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself perfect, confirm, strengthen and establish you. In this verse, Peter is telling us that, in His Grace God, does four things for us. First, He perfects us by equipping us to make us suitable to execute His Commands. Second, He stabilizes (conforms) us by making us immutable. Immutability is God’s inability to change. He is not susceptible to or capable of change. He is absolute, unalterable stability. So, through His Grace, if we stay in His Plan, we’ll become stable because we have Him to rely on! Because He is incapable of changing, we can have faith in His stability. Third, because of His Strength, when we put our faith in Him, we become spiritually stronger. And fourth, in His Grace, God establishes a foundation for us. The word establish means to cause to lean by supporting. Studying God’s Word leads us into fuller dependence on God and this establishes us. As Christians, we have a firm and eternally secure position in Christ.
Divine gentleness is freedom from arrogance. Arrogance is synonymous with jealousy, bitterness, vindictiveness, stubbornness, self-pity, conceit, slander, and gossip. If you think about it, just about every sin you can think of is associated with arrogance. No wonder why it’s what God considers to be the worst sin! Satan – the god of this world – uses arrogance to lure both unbelievers and believers away from the Pre-Designed Plan of God. Being arrogant is the complete opposite of being gentle or humble.
God wants all believers to be humble (have Divine Gentleness) because it makes us teachable, respectful and grateful. Humble believers glorify God by executing His Plan. An arrogant person doesn’t listen to anyone else’s opinion. When you’re arrogant, you think you’re always right. Arrogant people want to be better looking, better at sports and smarter in school. They are clearly not gentle people! Start to look at people around you and you’ll understand this.
If you have Divine Gentleness, you’ll recognize and respect the authority in your life. Humility amounts to Divine viewpoint thinking. This means that gentleness is related to Grace Orientation which is offering the very grace that God offers to you, to the people in your life. Divine Gentleness will allow you to have poise and courage under pressure. It will also enable you to have capacity for happiness.
If you’re humble, you’ll recognize that you’re going to make mistakes throughout your Christian walk, and it will allow you to recover through rebound (naming and citing your sins to God in His Son’s Name). As you develop gentleness, you’ll become more flexible in life which will allow God to mold you into a vessel of honor which glorifies Him.
Humility is an expression of God’s Word circulating in your soul; it is understanding your own helplessness and appreciating what God in His Grace can do. If you have Divine Gentleness, you’ll be grateful for God’s many, many blessings and provisions. But if you’re arrogant, you’re only going to glorify yourself! And that is the worst thing you can do.
Let’s close with these different descriptions of the quality of gentleness:
- Mildness combined with tenderness
- Gracious, kindly disposition, controlled strength
- A disposition that is even-tempered, tranquil, balanced in spirit, unpretentious and that has passions under control
- A character that is equitable, reasonable, forbearing, moderate, fair and considerate
- Power and strength under control
- Willing to pardon injuries, correct faults
The apostle Paul wrote: You younger men, likewise, be subject to your elders; and all of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, for God is opposed to the proud [arrogant], but gives grace to the humble. (1PE 5:5) If you develop Divine Gentleness, other people will gravitate toward you more. You’ll also be much more at peace with yourself.
{to be continued}