#26 - We Need Gentleness, Kindness, and Prayer

0:04 Welcome to Mind and Faith Matters. I'm the host Dr. Cory Potter and on today's episode, I want to continue my talk on prayer, but I have a heavy heart and I actually want to pray with you and just have some time of reflection before I go into strategic prayer as a weapon in spiritual warfare that I was going to this week. I just have such a heavy heart lately. Maybe it's that people aren't being so gentle in the workplace with each other. I've heard stories from different states and I've experienced it sometimes myself.

0:46 And I'm thinking we need gentleness right now. As believers we need to be gentle with people who are reacting to events in the United States anyway because they are as unbelievers not able to see things from a God perspective. But us as believers, those who are actually following after God, when we see these events, and I'm going to speak specifically about a couple of events that sparked me to talk about this, and I certainly am not sharing political views. I'm going with biblical views. maybe in political situations. You see, this week a national conservative voice that goes to college campuses and talks about his faith and conservative views, Charles Kirk, was shot. Now I've seen a lot of reactions on social media and some of them shock me from certain people. I'm one that no matter what my political beliefs are the death of one person by another person is wrong. I can't see it any other way and this has followed up in this hometown

2:17 that I live in now about six weeks ago or around there. One of our city councilmen, Lee Vogler, was in his office. a man who knew him and had some dispute with him that hasn't been disclosed came in and doused him with a five gallon can of gas. Now Lee started to run and try to get away from the scene and flee this guy but the guy lit him on fire and now this man has multiple burns over 60 % of his body and is in intensive care and is going to be there for months. rehabbing and he has a wife and kids just like Charles Kirk has a wife and kids and it doesn't matter to me if someone's single or married or is a parent or not and I was thinking about my reaction and my first reaction when I started to see people who may not be believers they're not gonna see things from a biblical perspective from a Holy Spirit within me who's Allowing me to experience the fruit of the spirit which one of the fruit is gentleness And I just feel like I Need to be careful and I think my listeners need to be careful that if you consider yourself a believer right now It's not that you can't feel like Wrong

3:51 is wrong and right is right and feel like you have an opinion But I just know that there are people Who are unbelievers in this world that are experiencing the same thing that a believer does and I think our reaction needs to be Patience and gentleness You know, I think of it like this I just heard this on someone else's podcast The gentleman was sharing a story about hypothetically if a blind man came let's just say into my house and he started to bump into furniture I don't think the proper response for me would be to say why are you doing that like can't you just get to where you're going the truth of the matter is when someone's blind we treat them with gentleness And in biblical fashion, 2 Corinthians 4 -4 says this, and I have to read it over here on the side tonight because this isn't what I planned to do. I just feel led that I need to. In the New Living Translation, 2 Corinthians 4 -4 says, Satan, who is the god of this world, has blinded the minds of those who don't believe. They are

5:23 unable to see the glorious light of the Good News. And a couple episodes back, I talked about a fresh start with God and what the Good News of the Gospel was. This next, verse four. They don't understand this message about the glory of Christ, who is the exact likeness of God. So they're blinded to it. And John 3, 3. The Bible says in the English Standard Version, Jesus answered him, truly, truly I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. And so I think sometimes we're holding people who aren't believers to a standard of they should know. Now, what I'm not saying is evil is going to happen and people don't know unless they're believers what good and bad is I don't I don't believe that and I'm not excusing any behavior that the perpetrators did to these people and in these stories I shared what I'm saying is my reaction initially on social media was if I'm honest Why are you being such an idiot about this? Why are you being so heartless? And I think it goes back to people's hurts. And you hurt me, I want to hurt you. You said this, I want to say that. And that's the political landscape

6:55 these days. And I'm not all for that. Second Timothy, by the way, the Bible isn't for it either. Second Timothy chapter two, verses 24 and 25 in the ESV. English standard version says it like this and the Lord's servant so if you're serving God if you truly are a follower of him and he's Lord of your life it says in the servant I'm sorry and the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone able to teach patiently enduring evil like other verses that say love your enemy continuing verse 25 correcting his opponents with gentleness now I'm not on the national stage nor do I want to be in the sense of I'm not putting myself out there by saying the things I'm saying maybe I'm putting myself in danger But people that are defending their faith in front of a larger audience Sometimes it can seem like truth is not gentleness and I'm not defending any particular person I'm just saying when you're sharing the Word of God when you're sharing your faith If you have an opponent

8:29 the Bible says we need to correct With gentleness God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth in other words Being rude is not going to bring people to your side and especially When we're talking about trying to represent who God is To others to close us for today. I want to pray I'm not trying to model a perfect prayer I'm just praying from my heart as I feel necessary and led for this episode.

9:11 I thought about it and a lot of my episodes kind of are coming together to paint this picture of maybe some ways that we can get rid of our busyness and be still and present before God and then understand that We sometimes drift away and we need to come back and prayer is the way that we can do that. But with my heavy heart tonight, I'm just going to pray. Dear Heavenly Father, Lord, we come to you and we praise you that you hear our prayers and that you love us and that you loved us first. Lord, we thank you for pursuing us. We thank you for sending your son Jesus to die on the cross. for our sins.

10:02 And Lord, we do thank you that you had the power to raise him up and defeat death. And Lord, we thank you that you are a God who loves us, who cares for us, and who gives us your word to help guide us and your spirit to lead us in living out your word. And so tonight, God, first and foremost, I do pray for protection for all my listeners' families and their own selves against the tactics and the problems that Satan loves to bring their way. Lord, even this episode being an impromptu episode after such a hard work week is a testament to how the pressures can take us away from our purpose and so Lord I pray that as believers who are honestly trying to follow you find you in a deeper more connected way that you would guide us and protect us Lord I pray for the families of those who I haven't mentioned that have been attacked or have been killed for just the way they are or the way they look. And

11:35 Lord, I know that you're not counting one sin greater than another. A sin and not doing things by your way and against you is wrong. And we all sin. Lord, help us to see that someone else's sin and our sin are just that, sin. And Lord, You've made a way And Lord as we follow you and we get that forgiveness of our sin Change us mold us make us new and in that Lord We want to have deeper roots into you So that we can as as trees if we're gonna look at that picture Lord That you give us abundant fruit and the fruit that you say is the fruit of the Spirit We can't put it on, we can't glue it on our trees, and we can't fake it like it's there. God, people will know us by our love, and they'll know us by your fruit in us, showing others. And Lord, tonight, above anything, as we respond to America's nonsense and bickering. and all the things that are tearing us apart, Lord. I pray that you give believers gentleness. And Lord, that we accept that gentleness, that we can take it into our workplaces and take it into our marriages and take it into our raising of our children. And

13:05 Lord, especially as we come against those who don't believe in you, they don't know you, they've been blinded by Satan to the kingdom of God. And you just are right there shining so bright. and they can't see you and lord ugliness is not going to lead them to you i pray that you give us gentle spirits lord i want you to help me in this area as much as i do my listeners i'm not just praying right now for others to hear real in a real vulnerable situation God, I pray for my gentleness. As people come, they're not trying to attack me at work. They're really just trying to live out their own insecurities sometimes, and they're struggling with their own significance.

14:05 And Lord, my significance isn't how many listeners I have to a podcast or how many dollars I make in my day job. But Lord, my significance is how I serve you and how I respond to you. and how I become more like Jesus and how I allow you to mold me and shape me. God I have an active part in it and prayer is such a powerful active part and I pray that you would help us each to use prayer as a weapon in our lives against the enemy in Satan. And Lord I thank you so much that your truth can break through and as Amazing grace the song says I was blind but now I see But what a day that is when people come and get a deeper understanding Of who Jesus is and they accept them they accept him in their lives But I pray for that for those that may not know you tonight that just stuck with this episode I pray that you would give them a fresh start with you and have Them inclined to go listen to the other episode where I talk about that fresh start But Lord, I'm not trying to advertise my podcast.

15:37 I'm wanting people to know who you are And I want people to be in awe of you. And if I can model for them how Jesus is and how Jesus lived his life on earth, Lord, help me to do so. Lord, we just pray these things in the precious name of your son, Jesus. Amen. really like to thank you for joining me this week I pray that as you're going throughout your week that somehow these words would help you to reflect help you to be gentle in your own self control but also to ask God to give us that gentleness and this idea of being kind without being quarrelsome. No one knows that the world needs that right now, not just the United States, the whole world needs it. And so I thank you for listening. I pray that you have a great week. Remember, your mind matters, your faith matters, and the more I think about it, each and every listener should matter not just to me, but to each other. So here's

17:09 to loving one another better. Have a great week.