COMMENTS
However natural depravity and heredity and nervous disorders may tend toward the spirit of fretfulness, taciturnity and touchiness, every heart filled with the Lord's Spirit must oppose this disposition to evil in his flesh, and must wage a good warfare against it. It will not do to say, "It is my way"; for all the ways of the fallen nature are bad; it is the business of the new nature to overcome the old nature in this as well as other works of the flesh and the devil; and few show to our friends and households more than this of the power of the grace of Love. This grace as it grows should make every child of God sweet-tempered.
By love not only is thankful good will meant, but more especially the unselfish, disinterested good will which delights in good principles, which appreciates character in harmony with them, which sympathizes with and pities those out of harmony with them, and which delights to lay down life to spread them. Such a love cannot become infuriated. An evil disposition is the reverse of such love. On the contrary, such a love is mild, long-suffering and forgiving.
1 Cor. 13:4; 2 Cor. 6:4-6; Gal. 5:22; Eph. 4:1, 2; Col. 1:11-13; 1 Tim. 1:16; 2 Tim. 3:10; 4:2; Prov. 19:11; Eccles. 7:21; Matt. 5:7, 39-48; Luke 6:35-37; Rom. 12:14, 17, 19, 21; 1 Cor. 4:12, 13; Eph. 4:32; 1 Pet. 3:9.
