This past week we have been meditating on scriptures on gentleness, the second to last fruit of the spirit.
And during this week, our Day 6 Scriptures is taken from Philippians 4:5 (in the NIV translation) and it says "Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near."
Great Scripture, right? Paul takes time during this prison epistles (or letter) to remind them of two very important things:
(1) Let your gentleness shine always. The New Living Translation says it this way "Let everyone see that you are considerate in all you do."
In no way is Paul telling people to be door mats. Instead, he is telling them to tread lightly when talking to unbelievers. Not every unbeliever will respond to the "hell fire and brimstone" approach to the gospel! Some simply need to be taken by the hand and shown a loving God.
So often in scripture we see people referred to as "sheep" and some people (who for whatever reason have a hard heart to the gospel) use that scripture as a chance to take a stab a christianity and say "oh..they're all sheep... can't think for themselves." That's not at all what it's saying.
Sheep need gentleness. Get too loud or too rough and they run. And usually, they're running for a cliff and don't even realize it.
Know anyone who's running from the gospel?
(2) "The Lord is near."
We hear constantly lately about "the end of time." The famous astrologer/astronomer, Nostradamus and the ancient Mayan calendars both predict the end of the world to be in 2012 (Nostradamus specifically says December 21, 2012.)
The funny thing about it though is that the Mayan calendar was written over 5,00 years ago; Nostradamus made his predictions in the mid 1500s (which equals just over 500 years ago); while Paul pens "The Lord is near" in 61 A.D.
SSSooo...who's right?
Well, if we use scripture to interpret scripture and take a look in Acts 1, we see the apostles ask the resurrected Christ when he will be coming back "to free Israel and restore our kingdom." Christ's response: "The Father alone has the authority to set those dates and times, and they are not for you to know."
What does this tell us? Since no one on this earth is or was God (aside from Christ), no one truly knows when it will all end. So why should we waste energy worry about something scriptures tells us we will never know the answer to until the trumpets sound?
Instead, we should focus on the the first part of that scripture...let our gentleness show to all around us, being considerate of what it will take to bring each type of personality to a saving knowledge of Christ.
That is a good use of your energy. :)
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