[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":4},["ShallowReactive",2],{"reading-0611":3},"JUNE 11\r\nThe servant of the Lord must be gentle (2 Tim. 2:24).\r\nWhen God conquers us and takes all the flint out of our nature , and we get deep visions into the Spirit of Jesus, we then see as never before the great rarity of gentleness of spirit In this dark\r\nand unheavenly world.\r\nThe graces of the Spirit do not settle themselves down upon us by chance, and if we do not discern certain states of grace, and\r\n\r\nchoose them, and in our thoughts nourish them, they never become fastened in our nature or behavior.\r\nEvery advance step in grace must be preceded by first apprehending it and then a prayerful resolve to have it\r\nSo few are willing to undergo the suffering out of which thorough\r\ngentleness comes. We must die before we are turned into gentleness, and crucifixion involves suffering; it is a real breaking and\r\ncrushing of self, which wrings the heart and conquers the mind.\r\nThere is a good deal of mere mental and logical sanctification nowadays, which is only a religious fiction. It consists of\r\nmentally putting one's self on the altar, then mentally saying the altar sanctifies the gift and then logically concluding therefore\r\none is sanctified; and such an one goes forth with a gay, flippant theological prattle about the deep things of God.\r\nBut the natural heartstrings have not been snapped, and the Adamic  flint has not been ground to powder, and the bosom has not throbbed with the lonely, surging sighs of Gethsemane; and not having the\r\nreal death marks of Calvary, there cannot be that soft, sweet gentle, floating, victorious, overflowing, triumphant life that\r\nflows like a spring morning from an empty tomb. --G. D. W.\r\n\"And great grace was upon them all\" (Acts 4:33).",1783499793108]