Colossians 3: 12 - 15 (NKJV)
“Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering; 13 bearing with one another, and forgiving one another, if anyone has a complaint against another; even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do. 14 But above all these things put on love, which is the bond of perfection. 15 And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you were called in one body; and be thankful.”
When we read the verses of this scripture, we see a blueprint of how God wants us His daughters to live.
First, we need to realise that we are the elect of God, the chosen of God. He has set us apart as holy and we are greatly loved by Him.
For these reasons He wants to be merciful and not full of judgement. He wants us to be tender towards others as He is tender towards us.
He calls us to be filled with kindness. A kind woman is beautiful in the eyes of God. Are you kind to others? Are you generous to others? Are you caring of others?
We are to be humble and not proud. Not full of self and arrogant before others. The Bible says, humble yourself in the sight of the Lord and He will lift you up.
You and I called to be meek. A biblical definition I looked up says this “Meekness, according to the Bible, is being humble and gentle towards others and willingly being submissive and obedient to the Lord. It is not being selfish and arrogant, unnecessarily loud or obnoxious. Rather, it’s having a quiet but confident trust in the Lord and being willing and able to do whatever it is He commands. In regards to how a meek person would treat others, they would definitely be humble and gentle both in their words and in their actions.
Even though it is not something we will willing embrace, we are called to be longsuffering, patient in our times of challenges as we await God’s intervention and visitation. There will times of pain, trial and tribulation for everyone of us women. In all of these, God loves us and has promised to never leave us nor forsake us.
We must also remember that as believers, we are all different even though we have the same DNA in Christ Jesus. For that reason, we must learn to bear with one another and forgive one another. We must be accommodating of others. Offences the Bible says, will come, but how do we handle this. Do we handle them by refusing to forgive or refusing to apologise, or holding on to our right to be offended? Your sister is not like you, nor are you like your sister. Even identical twins are not exactly the same. We all have our imperfections and our flaws but nevertheless our loving Father still loves us and accepts us as His children. Let’s take on the attributes of God.
The sum total of all of these is that God calls us to walk in love. You can have everything but if you refuse to live a life of love, sacrificial love, then everything else added together amounts to nothing. Love is kind, Love suffers long, Love does not envy, Love does not parade itself, Love is not puffed up, Love is not rude, Love does not seek its own, Love is not self-centred, Love is not easily provoked, Love thinks no evil nor speaks evil of others, Love does not rejoice in sin, Love things of the other, Love bears all things, Love thinks of, and hopes for the best. Take time this week to meditate on these and pray for God’s grace to help you. His grace is sufficient to help us all as much as we desire to live like this.
My prayer is that we will all put on the character of Christ as it has been shown us in these verses of scripture, that we will live like this and our Father in heaven will be glorified in Jesus name.
Agape…..