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Personal from...
(Continued from page 1)
in your life by God's Spirit is love.
Love is a righteous love of and for
others.
It
will mean your face is
beaming. It's an outgoing concern
for the good and welfare of others.
1t
will mean that you are really giv–
ing out- that you are radiant and
happy. And love results in joy–
tha t's the second of these fruits. The
third is peace. l nstead of an attitude
of hostility, instead of going around
quarreling, being resentful and bit–
ter, angry and arguing, you'll be in
an attitude of peace- peace in your
mind and with your neighbor and
wi th your God.
Next comes "longsutfering." That
means patience. How much has im–
patience made you unhappy? Prob–
ably impatience makes more people
unhappy than almost anything else!
lf you can reaUy come to have pa–
tience, you'll be acquiring one of the
things that makes life worth living
and that will allow you to be happy.
Then next is gentleness. That
makes others happy and automati–
cally adds to your happiness. And
then goodness and faith! Faith is
confidence-not self-confidence, but
reliance on the Supreme Power.
It
means the supreme power of God is
working for you.
If you could evaluate in dollars
what all these tremendous benefits
mean in your life, you'd have to pul
on them a value of millions and
millions of dollars. But these are
benefits you can't buy. God simply
wants to give them to you. What
they cost you is repenting of that
which has been producing unhappi–
ness, pain and sutfering, discour–
agement and frustration. It's a
tremendous bargain! That is the
fruit of God's Spirit that will
spontaneously spring forth from
you, radiate from you and cause you
to be a joy to others, as well as to
yourself.
Now this is not to say tha t there
are never troubles in the Christian
life. Far from it. There will be per–
secutions. Jesus Christ was per–
secuted. He said, " If they have
persecuted me, they will also per–
secute you" (John 15:20). That
comes from without. But unhappi-
44
ness is something that springs from
within. Happiness is a state ofmind;
happiness is within. And the person
who does have this inward peace–
this joy, this patience and love, and
absence of resentment and bitter–
ness-isn't going to be anywhere
near as disturbed and unhappy as
when he didn't have them. You'll
always face problems-but you'll
have faith and God's help in solving
them. But problems and tests of
faith are good for us-the very
building blocks of perfect spiritual
character.
lt's true Jesus was "a man of sor–
rows, and acquainted with grief."
lt's true He sutfered- He knew what
sutfering is. But His sutfering and
grief was not caused by pain others
inflicted on Him- not from resent–
ment, or being hurt by others-but
by His love for others. He suffered
because men were bringing so much
sutfering on themselves. But He also
was a man of boundless joy, and He
said, "These things have
1
spoken
unto you, that my joy might remain
in you, and that your joy might be
full."
o
HAPPY FAMILY
(Continued from page JO)
that serveth him" (Mal. 3:16-17,
KJV).
Jesus preacbed the good news
about His coming family govern–
ment-the rul ing, governing family
of God (God is called the Father;
Christ, the Son and the
'jirstborn
among
many brethren").
He likened the true Church to a
"mother," speaking of "Jerusalem
above, the mother of us all... . " He
inspired Paul to write about the
close, loving, deep relationship be–
tween Christ and the Church as the
pattern for !ove aod tender concern
between husband and wife.
When Jesus said :
"Repent
ye, and
believe my good news," He meant,
"Be sorry you have messed up your
lives;
be sorry
you have acted like
selfish, petulant, spiteful, carnal–
minded children ;
be sorry
you have
failed in your marriages, failed your
children, failed yourselves!"
The wages of sin (and failing in
marriage isasio)
isdeath(Rom.
6:23).
Today, society reaps the whirlwind,
for it has sown the wind of immoral–
ity, separations, desertions, divorce,
wife and child beating, pornography,
homosexuality. transvestism, and
every assorted form of attack against
the family, which is the very picture
of God's own Kingdom!
We reap the whirlwind of sense–
less killings, rapes, muggings, rob–
bery, arson, burglary- violence of
every sort- and it can all be traced
directly to the home.
Is
your
fami ly in a mess? Then it's
your mess- not someone else's!
God Almighty is calling on you to
clean it up! If you don't, then you
will sutfer the 'hideous consequences
now, and for years- to come. Your
parents will sutfer- if they're still
living- your wife or husband will
sutfer, your children, and all the
other more distant members of the
whole family will suffer, too! Your
community, and by extension, your
oation, will also sutfer!
But if you repent of the mass of
collective mistakes, faults, misun–
derstandings, lack of communica–
tion- all of it- that has caused the
mess in your family, then God can
and will heal your family for you!
God can straighten out the mess
for you, even if you think you can' t
do it alone!
All you have todo is ask! By the
way, ifyou want personal belp from
someone who is not only very well
trained to aid you with family diffi–
culties, but someone who really
cares, dial 800-423-4444, and ask to
be put in touch with one of our
representatives in your arca. It
could save a marriage- and
lives! D
ADDITIONAL READING
Dr. James Dobson,
What Wives Wish
Their Husbands Knew About Women,
Tyndale House Publishers, lnc.,
1975.
Howard J. Clinebell,
The lntimate
Marriage,
Harper
&
Row, 1970.
Alex Haley,
Roots,
Dell Publishing
Company, 1976.
J. Dominian,
Marital Breakdown,
Penguin Books, 1968.
Dr. James Dobson,
Dare to Dis–
cipline,
Regal, 1972.
Dr. James Dobson,
Hide or Seek?,
Revell, 1974.
Dr. Thomas Gordon,
Parent Effec–
tiveness Training,
Wyden. lnc., 1974.
The
PLAIN TRUTH June/ July 1978