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.
