Producing Patience

JAMES 1:2-8

My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials,
knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience.
But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.
If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him.
But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind.
For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord;
he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.

What is patience? In the King James Version we see it described as ‘longsuffering’. The Cambridge Dictionary describes patience in this way — ‘the ability to wait, or to continue doing something despite difficulties, or to suffer without complaining or becoming annoyed’. So longsuffering is a part of patience, but so is waiting. When we pray we are often in a tearing hurry, expecting an immediate answer from The Lord, but no matter how urgent we believe things to be, our God teaches us to wait and trust that He is ‘working all things together for good.’

But those who wait on the LORD
Shall renew their strength;
They shall mount up with wings like eagles,
They shall run and not be weary,
They shall walk and not faint.
[ISAIAH 40:31]

Patience is waiting — and specifically waiting on The Lord in the full expectation of His deliverance from trouble; and that patience and faith produces the strength to be an ‘overcomer’ in the fiery trials that we all experience.

Beloved, do not think it strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you,
as though some strange thing happened to you;
but rejoice to the extent that you partake of Christ’s sufferings, that when His glory is revealed,
you may also be glad with exceeding joy.
If you are reproached for the name of Christ, blessed are you,
for the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you.
On their part He is blasphemed, but on your part He is glorified.
[1 PETER 4:12-14]

Revelation 21:7 says He who overcomes shall inherit all things, adding and I will be his God and he shall be My son. This is the ultimate promise, our reward from the author and finisher of our faith, that our difficulties, trials and troubles are integral and essential to our life in Him, honing our natural reborn spirit to reach the perfection of the Holy Spirit.

MEDITATE ON THESE THINGS…

But before all these things, they will lay their hands on you and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and prisons.
You will be brought before kings and rulers for My name’s sake.
But it will turn out for you as an occasion for testimony.
Therefore settle it in your hearts not to meditate beforehand on what you will answer;
for I will give you a mouth and wisdom which all your adversaries will not be able to contradict or resist.
You will be betrayed even by parents and brothers, relatives and friends; and they will put some of you to death.
And you will be hated by all for My name’s sake.
But not a hair of your head shall be lost.
By your patience possess your souls.
LUKE 12:21-18 KJV (see also Matt. 24:3–14; Mark 13:3–13, both NKJV)

PATIENTLY ENDURING — Active Christianity

PRAYER REQUIRES … SIMPLICITY

AVOID EVERY TENDENCY away from the simplicity of relationship to God in Christ Jesus, and then prayer will be as the breath of the lungs in a healthy body.
[from ‘Christian Discipline Volume 2’ by Oswald Chambers]

LISTEN TO THIS MEDITATION HERE…

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COMING NEXT… #523 GOING ON TO PERFECTION