LIFE SCRIPTS

Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.
Colossians 3:12‭-‬14 NIV

In this passage, Paul speaks of several virtues that should be present in the life of a believer; compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. These virtues don’t spontaneously manifest in our lives. Instead, we must desire them over our lives. Infact, he states that we should ‘clothe yourselves’ with them. In a selfish and brutal world compassion for one another will definitely be in short supply; in a ruthless and ‘winner take it all’ society, kindness to one another will be all too seldom; in an era where people’s hearts are filled with pride, humility will be in short supply; in an age of being aggressive and governed by raw ambition, gentleness will be elusive; and in an instant generation patience will be totally lost. In other words, what Paul is telling us is to flow against the tide. How possible will it be? Only through the Spirit of God. It’s interesting that some of the virtues Paul highlights here like kindness and gentleness are components of the fruit of the Holy Spirit in Galatians. But Paul proceeds on further in verse 13 stating that we should bear with each other in forgiveness. That we should forgive as the Lord forgave us. That above all these virtues, we should put on love. There is a reality that the word of God is saying to us; even as we seek to be and do good to others, we shouldn’t expect the same from them. So when they wrong us we must be ready to forgive and show love to them. As we show patience, gentleness, compassion and other virtues to others, some if not most are bound to still offend us voluntarily or involuntarily. Such are the kinds of offences done to us that draw out the worst forms of bitterness from us. Have you ever done good to others and they end up ignoring you or doing bad to you instead? I must confess that it is a tremendously painful experience. We must seek to guard our hearts from bitterness by being and doing good to others without expecting good in return. We must instead be ready to forgive and give no room for bitterness to take root.