The Experience of Tenderness

August 8, 2018

The Experience of Tenderness

“The Lord is compassionate and merciful, slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love.”

Psalm 103:8

John Wesley taught his followers a simple way to discern God’s will. Wesley started with Scripture and then applied Reason, Tradition and Experience.  None of the last three elements are valid unless they align with Scripture. This is yet another example of principles that can be reduced to simplicity in writing, but remains difficult to master. In this case, the reason is fairly obvious: all four elements are subjective. Even so, Wesley introduced a vitally important aspect to those seeking the life in Christ as their way of life: experience.

Our Christian life can be understood as a dance in three parts. We receive information from many sources, from our interactions with others and through our environment. The Holy Spirit sifts through all of this input, and some of it becomes inspirational to us. Through the continuing work of the Holy Spirit, some of our inspiration is transformed to become incarnational and is then expressed through our lives as we engage the world around us. This transformation from inspirational to incarnational is our experience of God.

I am becoming increasing aware that the very close traveling companion of many in our society is anger. It seems anger is especially prevalent in older people. Perhaps it is their response to the many changes that invade their lives when they grow older. Perhaps it is rooted in the frustration of living in a body that doesn’t work as well as it once did. Whatever the root cause may be, when friends and neighbors gather together, someone’s anger with this or that is bound to pop out. Over and against this, the psalmist David models for us how we can be holy as God is holy (1 Peter 1:16) and thus we become “compassionate and merciful, slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love.”

My Takeaway: I invite you to join me in this devotional exercise. First, we read Psalm 103 and receive all of David’s information about the virtues of God. Next, we sit quietly before the Holy Spirit and allow Him to inspire, transform and make incarnational within us the Word of God. Then, we wait upon the Lord and experience His tenderness, His compassion, and His unfailing love. Through this experience of God’s grace, we will be prepared to allow the Holy Spirit to express God’s tenderness through our life.

Sē’lah

<><  <><  <><  <><

(Selah is a word that appears in the Book of Psalms that I often use as the Complimentary Closing in my correspondence. Its meaning, as I use the word, is to pause and think about these things.)

These meditations are written by Alex M. Knight as he seeks the life in Christ as his way of life.  The meditations are published on the BLOG, http://seekingthelifeinchrist.blogspot.com/ and they are also distributed on the Constant Contact email server. You may subscribe to this email service by sending an email to: amkrom812@gmail.com. The BLOG is also available on Amazon Kindle, by subscription.

Publications by Alex M. Knight:

·        Seeking the Life in Christ, Meditations on the New Testament and Psalms has been published and is now available at Amazon.com in paperback and Kindle.

·        The second edition of First Think – Then Pray is available on Amazon Kindle.

·        Meditations on The Story of My Life as told by Jesus Christ has been released as an e-book on Amazon Kindle.

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.