Patience_intranet

By Evelyn Pointer

Patience

Saturday, November 10, 12

Patience

What is patience? The dictionary says that patience is forbearing pains or trials calmly or without complaint. Job complained or expressed his pain and suffering so we must amend the dictionary definition. The type of complaint that we must not do is the way that the children of Israel complained in the wilderness, murmuring against God and expressing anger.Job while expressing his grief, even as Christ also did in the psalms and prior to his crucifixion, never lost his integrity. The second definition of patience in the dictionary is better. It means manifesting forbearance under provocation or strain. For bear means to control oneself. Another definition is to be steadfast despite opposition, difficulty or adversity. Let us define patience as steadfast obedience to God under tribulation or adversity.


Patience and obedience

When you obey God, and when you can control yourself and your actions even under very adverse conditions, keeping your integrity, you are showing patience.

The actual Hebrew meaning of the word patience includes long suffering and endurance. Long suffering is long and patience endurance of offense. God is long suffering to his children as well as to the children of the devil. He gives everyone time to obey. He does not destroy them at the first offense and usually not even after many offenses. Number 14:18, II Peter 3:9, Romans 9:22, Ecclesiasticus 18:8-14. To be long suffering is one of the fruits of the spirit which brings us into the likeness of God. Galatians 5:22, Colossians 1:10-11. We must be long suffering to each other. Ephesians 4: 1-3, Colossians 3:12-13.

“My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into diverse temptations; knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and endure, wanting nothing.” James 1: 2-4.


Patience and Endurance

Endurance means the ability to withstand hardship or adversity, the ability to sustain a long stress effort. Christ speaks about the last days in Matthew chapter 24, and he says in verse 13-”but he that shall endure until the end the same shall be saved.” It is necessary to have endurance because we must all go through hardship and adversity. In fact God proves us, whether we will obey or not with trials and afflictions and sacrifice. It is relatively easy to obey God when all things are going well and when no sacrifice is required of you. The young man who Christ spoke to who wanted eternal life said that he had kept the law since his youth , but Christ looking at him knew his weakness and he tried him, he said sell all that you have and give to the poor and follow me. The young man went away sorrowful because he could not make the sacrifice. He could obey the law as long as he did not have to sacrifice the comforts of this life. Christ also taught us what happens when someone has no endurance with his parable of the sower and the seed. Matthew 13: 3-6, Mark 4: 16-17


Patience leads to Perfection

The description of Charity in I Corinthians chapter 13 (Which we know is divine love in perfection) includes being long suffering and having endurance. verse 7 says “beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things and endureth all things.”

Christ calls upon us to wait on him, which means to watch, to remain ready, always looking for and expecting him. Luke 12: 35-40. And how do we as good watchmen wait on God and remain ready? We must be sober, we must be awake and we must wear the whole armor of God.


Suffering Affliction

In this life we must all suffer. it is a condition of living that applies to all men. In order to be saved we must also suffer. We have to take on Christ. To be like Christ we must be perfect. We must be obedient as he was to his father, and we must suffer like him. He was described by the prophet Isaiah in Isaiah 53: 3 as “a man of sorrow and acquainted with grief.” We must also have sorrow and grief. christ showed us that we can suffer affliction and still obey the Lord. He showed us that we can sacrifice to God. Did he not sacrifice his life to save ours? We can remain steadfast, we can wait upon our redeemer. This suffering is the cross of Christ. Matthew 16: 24-26. It is through this suffering, this sacrifice, this obedience to God that the old man of sin is mortified. Galatians 5: 24. We die in Christ but we also overcome this world as Christ did and we live in newness of life. We must all carry the cross of Christ. Romans 8:16-18, II Timothy 3:12.


learning to be steadfast

In Revelations chapter 3, Christ said to the church of Philadelphia that because they kept the word of his patience that he would also keep them from the hour of temptation which shall come upon all the world. The word of Christ’s patience is obedience to the law under tribulation. We suffer under tribulation. Tribulation is distress or suffering resulting from persecution. Christ suffered abuse because of persecution. The prophets suffered tribulation. Many people have lost their lives because of the word of God. Others, not losing as much, have lost jobs, opportunities and the love of their families and friends. Trying to hold on to these things by sitting on the fence is to deny the cross of Christ. Acts 14:21-22. But when you are persecuted for obeying God. Christ said, “rejoice and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.”


Two types of sorrow

We also sorrow. There are two kinds of sorrows. Godly sorrow is from the spirit of mourning and leads to repentance. The sorrow of the world leads to death. This sorrow is when people feel regret and frustration because they cannot have the things they want or live the life they want or be with the people they want. They may be grieving over the loss of the this common life. They may be grieving because of aging, illness or loss of beauty, jobs and relationships. This sorrow leads to depression and can lead to death. This comes of the spirit of the devil and is not of God. These people want a happier better common life, they are not interested in eternal life or the kingdom of heaven. II Corinthians 7:0.


The purpose of suffering What does suffering get you? How does it benefit you? Well tribulation leadeth to patience, patience to experience and experience to hope and hope leads to the love of God. Romans 5: 3-5. James 1: 2-4 says,”Let patience have her perfect work that ye may be perfect and entire.” Matthew 5: 10-12 says it is a blessing to be persecuted for righteousness sake. James 1: 12 says we will receive a crown of life. You will suffer in this world whether you are a child of God or not. the wicked suffer as well as the righteous. The conditions of this common life is a law that is decreed upon all men. You live, you can choose to do good or evil, you suffer and you die. It is the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. The evil in the fruit includes not only wickedness that you do, but because of sin and death it includes sorrow, hardship, distress, disease and ultimately death to every person whether they are a child of God or not. This is common suffering. Common suffering can be made worse because of poor decisions, such as a poor choice of spouse, not working, not getting an education, becoming involved with bad people, making poor financial choices. Some people suffer a lot because they are doing evil. They commit crimes and are put in jail, or they do not obey the company’s rules and they lose their job. It is not a blessing to you if you suffer and you were in the wrong. You were getting what you deserve. I Peter 2: 19-24. I Peter 3: 17.


Pathways

When you walk in the broad way, not seeking God, you suffer. When you walk on the straight and narrow path you also suffer, but Christ walks with you, The Holy Ghost comforts you and the Wisdom of God counsels you and helps you out of your troubles, and in the end, with patient endurance a crown of life awaits you. We also suffer with punishment and chastisement of the Lord. God does chastise his children to purge them and lead them back to the right path. Hebrews 12:6-7.

God chastises his children with mercy to lead them to repentance but with the wicked he reserves the fierce anger of his judgment. It may seem as if wicked people often get away with things but every on of them will suffer hell before the second death. They will know that they are lost, without hope, all of their sins will come back to their minds and will haunt and torment them, anguish, distress, fear, horror, terror, all await the wicked. They will suffer in this hell for as long as it has been judged according to their works.


Suffering

No one wants to suffer. It is never pleasant. Some people grieve long and hard. They even die of broken hearts. We have to fight against the tendency to focus so much on our troubles; forgetting the mercies of God and the promise of his coming. Doing this can be harmful to your health. It is Satan that wants to destroy you in this way. He torments us by constantly bring troubles to our minds in order to erode our hope and faith in God. Ecclesiasticus 30: 21-23. We must always remember that we have hope because God is always with us. In our worst times and in our greatest sorrows he is there.


Patience and tribulation

Troubled: ! worried, disturbedDistress: ! overcome by great difficultiesPerplexed:! full of difficulty, uncertaintyDespair:! loss of hopePersecuted:!harass, grieved, afflictedForsaken:! abandonedCast down:!down cast, low in spiritsDestroyed: !to ruin, killed

Therefore we have something to be thankful for each and everyday. We rejoice even in our tribulation. Paul describes suffering with hope in II Corinthians 4:8-10. What Paul means is even though we are worried because of difficulties we are going through with, we are not overcome by them and we do not lose hope. We have grief and affliction but God has not abandoned us, we may feel sad but this will not kill us. We have hope. We have faith and God will never leave us. I thank God for his patience and long suffering towards me and my family and towards all of us.


The Gift of Patience

I do not take lightly the precious gift that he gave me. I consider his own suffering remembering always the sacrifice that he made that I might live. God has given us time and opportunity to come to him. He came to this earth and as a man bore with such patience the hatred, envy and disrespect of the people he had created. Our second greatest example is Job who lost everything in a moment, all of his wealth, all of his children, his health and his peace of mind. He lost the respect of his friends and the honor of his servants and event the honor of his wife. Yet he never charged God foolishly. I began with a memory verse from the book of James and I will conclude also from James. James 5: 7-11.


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