YESTERDAY WE TALKED ABOUT “SWEETNESS,” AND TODAY OUR TOPIC IS “AMIABILITY.” Today’s word, a good one although we don’t use it very often, is one of several English words that come from the Latin noun amicus (“friend’). Amicable (“characterized by friendship or goodwill”) and amity (“peaceful relations”) are two others. All of these words have to do with friendship. Amiability means a friendly DISPOSITION or OUTLOOK. The amiable person tends to think of other people as friends, and this shows up in two characteristics.

(1) LIKABLENESS. This is the most basic feature of amiability. It suggests the person who is agreeable in temperament. The expression “good-natured” is probably a good synonym. The amiable person’s natural bent or inclination is to like people — and consequently, he or she is easy for others to like in return. Friendly people have friends!

(2) CORDIALITY. The second aspect of good-natured people is that they enjoy the company of others. Words like “cordial” and “congenial” describe them. They see the value of social relationships, and they enjoy time spent interacting with friends. They also see the value of relating to strangers and newcomers in a friendly, welcoming way.

Although most people think of these two things — likableness and cordiality — as “personality” traits, they are much more than that. Indeed, these two characteristics have little to do with personality. They are CHOSEN WAYS OF THINKING, and having been chosen, they will show up in ways appropriate to each of our various personalities.

In general, we need to give higher priority to simple traits like amiability. Judging by our schedule books, we spend more of our daily time chasing the goals of “intelligence” and “talent” and “success.” But when the final accounting is made, wouldn’t we rather be remembered for having had characteristics like amiability? Without qualities like these — the ones that connect us joyfully to other human beings — what will we have accomplished by all of our “accomplishments”?

“Good nature is more agreeable in conversation than wit, and gives a certain air to the countenance which is more amiable than beauty” (Joseph Addison).

PETER WROTE THAT WE OUGHT TO LOOK FORWARD TO OUR LORD’S RETURN, AND IF HIS RETURN IS DELAYED, LOOK UPON THAT DELAY AS THE VERY THING THAT MAKES OUR SALVATION POSSIBLE. There is no way around the fact that our salvation depends on the Lord’s longsuffering. If He were as impatient as we are, our opportunity for improvement would have run out long ago. If we end up being saved, we will owe that salvation to the Lord’s willingness to wait.

OPPORTUNITY FOR REPENTANCE. The Lord’s delay in returning is not license to enjoy our sins for a while longer; it’s an extended opportunity to get those things out of our character. Paul asked the pertinent question when he said, “Do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance?” (Romans 2:4).

OPPORTUNITY FOR SPIRITUAL GROWTH. In terms of our spiritual maturity, none of us is where we need to be. We need more time to grow, and that is just what the Lord is giving us with His longsuffering. While He waits, we must use every day as a day of growth.

OPPORTUNITY FOR EVANGELISM. Not only does the Lord’s longsuffering mean salvation for us, but it can mean salvation for those around us too. The more time we have before the end, the more time we have to get His message out to others. Every day the world still stands is a day that must be used evangelistically.

When Paul wrote to the church in Corinth, he used an expression that ought to suggest the most horrifying thing imaginable. He said, “We then, as workers together with Him also plead with you NOT TO RECEIVE THE GRACE OF GOD IN VAIN” (2 Corinthians 6:1). Do we receive the grace of God in vain? To do that would be to WASTE the patience and longsuffering that God has shown us, ending up being lost despite the fact that God waited and waited and waited. If God has not yet come to judge the world that does not mean that He is indifferent to evil; it means that He is still holding the door of salvation open. His longsuffering is nothing less than our salvation. We are the world’s greatest fools if we don’t see that.

“Hell is God’s justice; heaven is his love; earth, his longsuffering” (Anonymous).

Gary Henry – WordPoints.com

THROUGH JESUS CHRIST, GOD IS MAKING IT POSSIBLE FOR HUMAN BEINGS TO HAVE AGAIN THE KNOWLEDGE OF HIM THAT WAS LOST IN THE FALL. Contrary to what the tempter had promised, Adam and Eve found that asserting their independence from God’s will did not gain them a knowledge equal to God’s. Instead, they found themselves driven from God’s presence and cut off from what knowledge they had previously enjoyed. Soon they and their descendants had lost all but a fading memory of the face-to-face knowledge of God that Eden had provided.

But although the Fall resulted in the plunging of the human race into spiritual and moral darkness, God began almost immediately to re-enlighten the world concerning Himself. Little by little, and in various ways, God began to reveal Himself. This process of progressive revelation stretched over many centuries, until finally it was time for God to take upon Himself the form of flesh and blood and reveal Himself to the world in the person of Jesus Christ (Galatians 4:4; Colossians 1:15).

The writer of Hebrews said, “God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son” (Hebrews 1:1-2). As God Incarnate, Jesus Christ is “the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person” (Hebrews 1:3). The apostle John wrote, “No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him” (John 1:18). And Jesus Himself said, “He who has seen Me has seen the Father” (John 14:9). Through Christ we can come to know God.

Yet even in Christ, it is still not possible for us right now to see and know God as Adam and Eve did. But Jesus said, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Matthew 5:8). The hope of Christianity is that, through Christ, what was lost in the Fall can actually be regained. The time comes when those who have truly sought God “shall see His face” (Revelation 22:4).

“Today I am one day nearer home than ever before. One day nearer the dawning when the fog will lift, mysteries clear, and all question marks straighten up into exclamation points! I shall see the King!” (Vance Havner).

Gary Henry – WordPoints.com

MOST OF US COULD STAND A LITTLE SWEETENING. To be described as sweet is not a criticism but a compliment, even for men. And in these days of stress and strain when life tends to make us hard, a bit of sweetness added to our character would be welcomed by those who have to deal with us. When you consider the opposites of sweetness — sourness, bitterness, unpleasantness, grouchiness, etc. — isn’t it clear that sweetness is an attribute that we should aspire to?

Sweetness can be overdone, of course, and that is probably what most people have in mind when they think of the word negatively. Just as foods can be too sweet, so can people. Personally, I appreciate being called sweet, but I wouldn’t care to have it said that I am “sugary” or “saccharine.” That would mean that there is an imbalance in my makeup and that I am missing some qualities that are meant to complement sweetness, such as seriousness, realism, and strength. But balanced with other qualities, sweetness should be one of the traits that we are known for. It simply means that we have a pleasing disposition and are kind and gracious in our dealings with others.

But in addition to sweetness of disposition, there is also the sweetness of life itself. At least two things need to be said about this. One is that we often fail to appreciate it because of our abundance. For many of us, sweetness is a very ordinary, unexceptional thing, and as Shakespeare said, “Sweets grown common lose their delight.”

The other thing, closely related to the first, is that our hearts may have to be broken before we can understand the sweet side of life. As an old Jewish proverb puts it, “The man who has not tasted the bitter does not know what the sweet is.” And not only that, but it may take hardship and suffering to bring out the sweet side of our disposition. You may not think of yourself as being very sweet, and others may not think of you that way either. But when you have been deeply hurt, all of that may change. It will depend on how you choose to respond.

Aromatic plants bestow
No spicy fragrance while they grow;
But crushed or trodden to the ground
Diffuse their sweetness all around.
(Oliver Goldsmith)

Gary Henry – WordPoints.com

BETWEEN NOW AND THE TIME OF OUR DEPARTURE FROM THIS LIFE, THERE IS A “RACE” THAT HAS TO BE RUN. And frankly, the image of a race is mainly an image of pain. Anyone who has ever run a footrace of any distance knows that before the end finally comes, every muscle in the runner’s body cries out for relief. And the longer the race, the more tempting it is to simply quit running.

A GREAT CLOUD OF WITNESSES. When we run as God’s people, we are doing something that many, many others have done before us. And the writer of Hebrews describes those who’ve gone before as a “great cloud of witnesses,” a stadium full of supportive spectators cheering us onward with the hearty cry, “You can do it!”

LAY ASIDE EVERY WEIGHT. In addition to supporters, we also happen to have a spiritual adversary whose purpose it is to defeat us. We must not let him have his way. The “sin which so easily ensnares us” must be laid aside. It’s a very simple matter. Either we decide to lay our sins aside, or they will be our undoing.

RUN WITH ENDURANCE. We are not in a sprint but a marathon. For all we know, it may be many years before the time comes for us to rest. But remember the “cloud of witnesses”? One of those witnesses is Paul, who wrote toward the end of his life, “I have finished the race” (2 Timothy 4:7). He did it, and we can do it too.

But there’s no chance we’ll do what Paul did if we’re not motivated by what motivated him: THE GLORIOUS PROSPECT OF BEING WITH CHRIST FOREVER. He said that he had sacrificed every worldly thing that ever mattered to him: “that I may gain Christ and be found in Him . . . that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead” (Philippians 3:8-11). Any goal less powerful than this will fail to keep us going. We must fix our hearts upon our Lord and determine that we are going to run the race, come whatever may. There can be no question or equivocation about it. So let us not merely study or think about running the race. LET US RUN THE RACE.

“To believe in heaven is not to run away from life; it is to run toward it” (Joseph D. Blinco).

Gary Henry – WordPoints.com

CONCEPTS HAVE CONSEQUENCES IN OUR LIVES, AND CONCEPTS OF GOD ARE THE MOST CONSEQUENTIAL OF ALL. False information about God will “mislead” us, whereas truthful information about Him is a “lamp” to our feet and a “light” to our path (Psalm 119:105). Christianity is a powerfully transforming force because it involves a deep renewal in our thinking (Romans 12:1-2), especially our thinking about God Himself (John 17:3). Yet long after the time when many of us should have experienced quantum improvements in the quality of our lives, we still struggle to maintain a minimum level of purity and holiness. We stumble as if we were walking in the dark. Could it be that our outward actions are being produced by inner thinking that is unworthy of God? Are we still being hindered by careless thinking about our Creator?

In Romans 6:17-18, Paul expressed gratitude that his readers had been “set free from sin.” This, he said, had followed from their having “obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered.” Most people think of “doctrine” as nothing more than religious theory, and they spend little time with it because they feel it is not very practical. But doctrine (which means “instruction”) is eminently practical. Without right thinking, there simply can be no right practice, at least none that will stand the test of time. The entire work of the devil is based on FALSEHOOD (John 8:44; Revelation 12:9), so it should come as no surprise that TRUTH is the means by which God undoes that work (John 18:37; Acts 26:18). To know God as He truly is, and to base our “practical” decisions on that truth, is to be “set free from sin.” There is no other way to make progress. Jesus said it with utter simplicity: “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:32).

We should set ourselves the goal of carefully improving our thinking about God a little bit each day. There is no question that our lives will be governed by some sort of thinking about God. The only question is what the quality of that thinking will be.

“A thoughtless or uninformed theology grips and guides our life with just as great force as does a thoughtful and informed one” (Dallas Willard).

Gary Henry – WordPoints.com