“I’m just not a gentle person.” Maybe you’ve said it, or maybe you’ve dressed it up a little by saying, I’m just direct, I’m passionate, I tell it like it is, or, that’s just my personality.” We can come up with a lot of explanations for why we respond the way we do.

But there’s a problem. Gentleness is a fruit of the Spirit, and throughout this series we’ve established something important: God gets to define the fruit. Culture doesn’t define patience.

Our circumstances don’t define joy. Our preferences don’t define kindness. And our personality doesn’t get to define gentleness. God does.

When we hear the word gentle, we often picture someone quiet, passive, timid, or maybe even weak. But that’s not the biblical picture at all, Jesus described Himself as gentle. Think about that, the One who calmed storms, the One who confronted religious leaders, the One who drove money changers from the Temple, the One who stood before Pilate without fear and the One who could call legions of angels to His defense.

Jesus said: “I am…gentle at heart.” Jesus wasn’t weak, His strength was completely surrendered to the Father. That’s gentleness. Gentleness is power wrapped in peace.

The Holy Spirit isn’t trying to make you a nicer version of yourself. He’s forming the character of Jesus in you. Eventually we have to stop excusing things God wants to transform.

Maybe harshness or anger comes naturally to you or maybe you have the ?gift? of sarcasm. But the Fruit of the Spirit has never been about what comes naturally. It’s about what the Holy Spirit produces supernaturally. Thankfully we don’t have to remain who we’ve always been. The Holy Spirits desire is continually form Christ in us. Sometimes scripture and prayer, and sometimes He puts us in situations where what is really inside us comes spilling out, and that’s when we discover whether gentleness has simply become something we believe…or something we’re becoming.