Patience: Do We Have The Lord’s patience? Is Patience Love? June 20, 2012

Patience: Do We Have The Lord’s patience? Is Patience Love?

Patience can be defined as: longsuffering; endurance; forbearance; characterized by this divine virtue or spiritual fruit.

All too often we are impatience; we do not want to wait on anything; the way the society is structured now we are taught that we need to have it now (instantly). We demonstrate impatience to the Lord all the time; if a prayer is not answered right away we complain to the Lord about it and in many cases we are the same way with our family or any other problems that we want an answer too or a problem resolved.

No longer in our schools; other centers of learning or in many families are we taught the spiritual virtues that we all need and long for. With the breakup of the family unit that started in the 60’s ( the free love movement, hippies and so on); encouraged by the media and the government trying to take the place of the family unit along with the government welfare programs is when we started to loose many of our spiritual virtues ( that is another lesson in itself).

Much of the blame can be put on our old enemy Satan; but we ourselves and the church must take some of the blame too. As we know the devil comes to kill, steal and destroy; but how much of the blame is ours and the church of today? Are we and the church fighting back hard enough or are we like the Church in Laodicea in Revelation 3: 15-16 NLT. In it the Lord says; “I know all the things you do, that you are neither hot nor cold. I wish you were one or the other! But since you are like lukewarm water, I will spit you out of my mouth!” Some of these questions you will have to answer for yourself for you know the answer in your community; but as a whole is the church doing enough; are we a unified church family? Sadly the answer to the last question is no; we are not doing enough and we are not a unified church. There is too much bickering, infighting and differing theologies that abound in the church, too much of man’s theology and not enough of the true Gospel teaching of God’s word.

What does the gospel teach us about patience? In Psalm 75:2 it states; “God says, “At the time I have planned, I will bring justice against the wicked.” This verse is teaching us to be patience with God. In other words God is saying that He knows what is best for us and that He will do it at a time and place of His choosing.

In Proverbs 25:15 it says; “Patience can persuade a prince, and soft speech can crush strong opposition.”  This verse is teaching us that patience is valuable. What else does this mean to us? In Matthew Henry’s Commentary it is telling us that there are two things recommended in dealing with others, 1.Patience, to bear a present heat without being put into a heat by it, and to wait for a fit opportunity to offer our reasons and to give persons time to consider them. By this means even a prince may be persuaded. 2. Mildness, to speak without passion or provocation: A soft tongue breaks the bone; it mollifies the roughest spirits and overcomes those that are most morose, like lighting, which they say, has sometimes broken the bone, and yet not pierced the flesh.

Patience is better than pride. It tells us this in Ecclesiastes 7:8 the whole verse states; “Finishing is better than starting. Patience is better than pride.” The Amplified Version states it this way; “Better is the end of a thing than the beginning of it. And the patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit.” In Matthew Henry’s Commentary it tells us: Better is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof. Better was the end of Moses’s treaty with Pharaoh, that proud oppressor, when Israel was bought forth with triumph, than the beginning of it, when the tail of bricks was doubled, and everything looked discouraging.

If we would not be driven mad by oppression, we must be clothed with humility; for the proud in spirit are those that grow outrageous when they are hardly bested. We must put on patience, bearing patience, to submit to the will of God in the affliction, and waiting patience to expect the issue in God’s due time. We must govern our passion with wisdom and grace.

Patience demonstrates love. It tells us in 1 Corinthians 13:4 “Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud (v5) or rude. Love does not demand its own way. Love is not irritable, and it keeps no record of when it has been wronged.

Patience is evidence of the Holy Spirit working in our lives (Galatians 5:22). We know this because in verse 22 it tells us; “But when the Holy Spirit controls our lives, he will produce this kind of fruit in us: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, (v23) gentleness, and self-control. Here there is not conflict with the law.”

Be patient with each other (Ephesians 4:2). In this verse it tells us; “Be humble and gentle. Be patient with each other, making allowance for each other’s faults because of your love.” In the NKJV it states it this way; “With all lowliness and gentleness, with longsuffering, bearing with one another in love, (v3) endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”

In closing I will ask a question: Is patience love, is it self-control, is it submitting to the will of God, does patience have anything to do with humility? We will look one last time at Matthew Henry’s Commentary on Eph. 4:2 it states; “Exhortation to mutual love. Love is the law of Christ’s kingdom, the lesson of his school, the livery of his family. The means of unity: Lowliness and meekness, long-suffering, and forbearing one another in love.” By lowliness we are to understand humility opposed to pride, by meekness, that excellent disposition of soul which makes men unwilling to provoke others, and not be easily provoked. Long-suffering implies a patient bearing of injures, without seeking revenge. Forbearing one another in love. The best Christians have need to make the best one of another, to provoke one another’s graces and not their passions. We find much in ourselves which is hard to forgive ourselves; and therefore we must not think it much if we find in others which we thank hard to forgive them, and yet we must forgive them. Now without these things unity cannot be preserved. The first step towards unity is humility. Pride and passion break the peace, and make all the mischief. Humility and meekness restore the peace. The more lowly-mindedness the more like-mindedness.

The correct answer to the question I asked above is yes to all and it is much more than that as we can see by looking at the teaching as a whole. Being patient is so much more than most of us ever thought it could be. Who would have thought that being patient would show love or evidence of the Holy Spirit working within us? We all need to strive to be more like our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, we need to imitate Him. We need to love like Him and have patience like Him. We need to understand what patience really is and my hope is that this will help you as it has helped me to be more patience and to understand and become closer to our Lord and Savior.