Let your gentleness be known to all men. The Lord is at hand. (Phil. 4:5)

The Amplified Bible spells it out this way: “Let your gentle spirit [your graciousness, unselfishness, mercy, tolerance, and patience] be known to all people.”

Please note who should see this evident ‘fruit’ in our lives: ‘ALL people’, not just those we want to make a good impression on. I’ll give you a moment with that one.

You do realize, I hope...that we just don’t get up from reading a verse like that one day and just purpose in our heart that we are going to simply ‘go out and manifest gentleness’ in our daily living to ‘all’ people all the time. It just doesn’t work like that, no matter how badly we want to ‘bear fruit for God’ that is pleasing to Him. (Luke 13:6-9)

What was the one distinguishing mark of identification that ‘all would know we are His (Jesus) disciples’? It would be the love we demonstrate towards one another, a God-kind-of-love (agape) that was very similar to the way in which Christ first loved us. (John 13:34-35; 15:12; Rom. 5:8).

For the record...one does not simply dry themselves off upon getting out of the water baptistry after making a ‘profession for Christ’ and begin to do this...’walk like Jesus walked’ (1 John 2:6).

Oh...make no mistake about it...in those early days of genuine ‘conversion’, there is an abundance of grace, peace, and joy that often marks a new believer’s countenance. It’s hard to deny that ‘something has happened’ to them; but this life of following Jesus involves more than just an initial ‘experience of repentance’ (Acts 3:19). This ‘walk of salvation’ has just begun...and it is ‘those who endure till the end...that will be ‘saved’” (Matt. 24:13). And friends...’following/obeying Jesus’...is not some ‘legalistic' work by which we ‘earn or work for our salvation’. (Luke 6:46)

We read in multiple places where followers of Jesus ‘turned away and followed Him no more’ (John 6:66). People stray, fall away, drift, or become entangled with idols (cares of this life) and such, and never continue on (abiding) bearing fruit that shows we are His disciples (John 15:8; Col. 1:21-23).

This ‘bearing fruits of repentance’ (Matt. 3:8,10) is a ‘process indeed’, and one that cannot be rushed based on our timetables. As I have been touching on here the past few days, trying to rush and expedite the ‘ways of God’ is a sure fire recipe for slowing down the process and making things worse. It can be a painful lesson to learn, especially if in the latter years of one’s life; trust me on this one. But God...

May I share with you one of the most heart-encouraging verses in the Bible, in my opinion? It’s found in Judges 16:22; and it has to do with the story of Sampson. Perhaps you have heard of him before? Sampson was an Israelite judge and in some ways a ‘folk hero’. He was well known for his superhuman strength which had been given to him by God. Tied in to this incredible strength was the fact his hair had never been cut which was the ‘source’ of this gift of strength given to him by God.

I won’t pretend to know that I understand what Paul was speaking to in 1 Cor. 11 about a woman’s hair being her ‘covering’ (symbolic), but we do know that Christ is to be our ‘head’ or ‘covering’ in all that we do. And in Sampson’s case...his long hair was everything to him, a symbol of God’s covering over his life. But moral compromise led to his head being shaved, and he lost all his strength and was taken captive by the Philistines. Just a side note of interest here, but in the OT, the ‘Philistines’ are often understood to be a ‘type of the flesh’ that Israel was always contending with; and I’ll just leave that here for now.

As stated, moral compromise led to Sampson’s downfall, and not only was he taken captive and imprisoned by the Philistines...but his eyes were gouged out and his life was reduced to blindly pushing a giant millstone in circles. He had lost his vision...and every day it was back to the ‘same old grindstone’, a captive to the fruits of his sin. (Judges 16:21).

“However, the hair of his head began to grow again after it had been shaven.” (16:22)

You can read the rest of the story for yourself in vs. 23-31, but it is a telling conclusion as we see God’s grace poured out upon Sampson once again, accomplishing more in his final days than all the years previously. And you should note this involved a complete ‘death’ to self, you might say. Now hopefully one does not interpret this to suggest you have to just ‘fall on the sword and die’ physically... in your own life. That would be a twisting of scripture to pervert the ways of God, compliments of you know who. But don’t think for a moment that Jesus is chiming in here, backtracking, and saying to us: “Oh, I was just kidding about you having to ‘take up your cross and die to self’ (by laying down your carnal, sinful life).”

What do you think Jesus was trying to communicate to the 7 churches in Revelation with his ‘corrective rebukes’, even telling the church at Sardis that He had not ‘found their works complete’ (3:2), and that they better repent lest He come upon them like a ‘thief’? And do you remember what a ‘thief’ comes to do? (John 10:10). Do you also realize how widespread the deception was there amongst those ‘believers’? They thought they were a really ‘alive’ church for all the supposed reasons...and Jesus flat at tells them they are ‘dead’ in His sight (3:1)

Somewhere along the way, those folks drifted...or maybe even got ‘drowsy’ and fell asleep, just like those 'ten virgins' in Matt. 25:1-13. And do you remember there was a warning cry, of sorts that went out at midnight to awaken them from their slumber? It was the ‘wise’ virgins who recognized the seriousness of the hour and finished making themselves ready so they could ‘go in the door to the wedding’ (Matt. 25:10; Rev. 19:7)

Friends, correct me if you think I’m wrong, but what I seem to be reading in my Bible, as well as ‘hear the Spirit saying in this hour’...is ‘we better get busy dying so we can start truly living’.

The Lord is at hand.

It’s almost a similar message Jesus told that young, rich ruler in Matt. 25:16-22. Not everyone will receive this though, which is sadly unfortunate. But God’s word has never changed...if we continue to ‘live according to the flesh...we will die’ (Romans 8:13).