"The Heart of God in You"

If we could explain the ability to endure persecutions and trials with the joy and hope required to make others wonder, it could only happen because we have a strength within us which is of God. The Holy Spirit is that force, yet the motivation of the Holy Spirit is to express the Love of God within us, and the manifestation of the Love is Jesus Christ. This is another expression that is given of 'The Suffering Servant' in Isaiah 53:7, "He was oppressed, and He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth: He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so He openeth not His mouth." The word for 'meekness' that is used in 1 Peter 3:15, is the word 'prautes', which is a noun, not a verb; with the meaning of meekness that goes beyond man's outward behavior and relations to his fellow man, or even his mere natural disposition. Rather, it is an inwrought grace of the soul, and the expressions of it are primarily towards God. It is the attitude of the spirit that accepts God's dealings with us as good and we do not dispute or resist. The word 'prautes' is not readily expressed in English, since the term meekness suggest weakness; but it is a condition of the mind and heart which demonstrates gentleness, not in weakness, but in power. This is the expressions of our Lord and Saviour as He was taken before the authorities, beaten, and the crucified for our sins; being powerful in the gentleness by which He allowed them to fulfill the Father's plan...