Patience is a Virtue

 Fourth is Patience

The King James Version of the Bible lists the fourth fruit as “longsuffering.” According to the dictionary, “longsuffering” means patiently enduring wrongs or difficulties. We could go further and say that it means resisting anger and showing patience when dealing with people!! God was surely (and still is) “longsuffering” when it comes to us.

 

Romans 2:4 “Or do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance?”

 

Ephesians 4:1-2 “…walk worthy of the calling with which you were called, with all lowliness and gentleness, with longsuffering, bearing with one another in love “

 

1 Corinthians 13:4 “Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy, love does not parade itself, is not puffed up.”

 

1Thessalonians 5:14 “…be patient with all.”

 

Patience Involves Perseverance.

Perseverance is defined as steadfastness in doing something despite difficulty or delay in achieving success.

 

  Romans chapter five begins by telling us that we have peace with God and we can rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Then Paul writes,

Romans 5: 3-5 “And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; and perseverance, character, and character, hope. Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.”

Glory in tribulations? Who likes trouble? Yet this is what the Bible says. Trouble teaches us how to keep moving forward in spite of the difficulty or delay in achieving success. This steadfastness produces character and character produces hope.

The definition of hope is “the feeling that what is wanted can be had or that events will turn out for the best.” Another definition is “a person or thing in which expectations are centered.” This definition applies to us, believers in the salvation given by the finished work of our Lord, Jesus Christ. He is the person in which are expectations are centered. He expressed this before He went to the cross.

John 16:33 “These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.”

 

 

 

Patience involves waiting.

Patience is not apathy. It is waiting with the confident expectation of good. The Bible says that all the promises of God in Christ are Yes, and in Christ, Amen. (2 Corinthians 1:20)

 

Job, who had been through more than any one person should be able to take, even though his friends said he must have sinned, answered that after everything, he would still wait.

 

Job 14:14 “…All the days of my hard service I will wait, Till my change comes.”

 

Psalm 27:14 “Wait on the Lord, Be of good courage, And He shall strengthen your heart; Wait, I say, on the Lord!”

David, in the Psalm 37 begins the Psalm telling us not to fret because of evildoers nor to be envious of those who appear to prosper while they’re doing wrong.

Psalm 37:7 “Rest in the LORD, and wait patiently for Him…”

 

 Isaiah 40:31 tells us, “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.”

 

Luke 21:19 “By your patience possess your souls.”

 

James 1:2-3 “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.

 

James 5:7 says, “…See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, waiting patiently for it…”

 

1Thessalonians 5:14 “Now we exhort you, brethren, warn those who are unruly, comfort the fainthearted, uphold the weak, be patient with all.

 

I have such a hard time with patience. I know that God is “completing the good work He started in me and will keep completing it until the day of Christ Jesus.” (Phil. 1:6). We have to have patience while God works out our trials and we have to be patient while God transforms us into the image of His Son. This work God started is an ongoing work. He started it and He’s fine-tuning it.  Patience is standing – not standing still- but standing in agreement with what God says He will perform. The Bible says that we are seated with Christ in the heavenly places (Ephesians 2:6) and that we are already blessed with every spiritual blessing according to Ephesians 1:3.

 One way to cultivate patience is to constantly recall the way God has moved on our behalf in the past. Jeremiah did this in the book of Lamentations. His people were in the midst of destruction and captivity and Jeremiah rightly “laments” his grief.

Lamentations 3: 17 “You have moved my soul far from peace; I have forgotten prosperity.” Yet by the time we get to verse 21, we have Jeremiah “remembering” his source of hope.

Lamentations 3: 21-26 “This I recall to my mind, Therefore I have hope. Through the Lord’s mercies we are not consumed, Because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning. Great is Your faithfulness. The Lord is my portion, says my soul. Therefore I have hope in Him. The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, To the soul who seeks Him.”

 

Patience is a Virtue?

This phrase is supposedly taken from an epic poem from the fifth century. Whether or not the poem itself is based on any Biblical principle isn’t clear. What is clear is that when the woman with the issue of blood “snuck up on Jesus and touched the hem of his garment,” He responded, “Some virtue has gone out of me.” Now the word virtue is defined as “high moral standards.” For Jesus to say some of his “high moral standard” has gone out of him is to say that part of His goodness was extended to this woman because of her faith. 

Mark 5:30 “And Jesus, immediately knowing in himself that virtue had gone out of Him, turned him about in the press, and said, Who touched my clothes?”

Interestingly enough, the New King James Version says, “some power had gone out of Him.” So now we can say that patience is goodness and patience is power.

 

Having Patience leads to peace with people

Galatians 5:22 begins with “the fruit of the Spirit is love.” Love is listed first in the attributes of living a life influenced by the Holy Spirit. Love can be thought of as number one on the list or love can be thought of “the fruit” itself, with the rest just being evidences of love. We see that 1 Corinthians 13 is often called “the love chapter.” And we see in 1 Corinthians 13:4 that “love suffers long and is kind.” As we relate to others and interact with them, we have to extend patience. Everyone is not going to think what we think or agree with what we say. Everyone is not going to act the way we think they should act or do the things we think they should do. We have to respect people enough to not jump in with our opinions while they’re talking. Even if we believe that we are right, we have to have the patience to hear people out and to allow them to live the way they see fit. Even when we’re trying to tell them about God’s goodness, we have to be sure that we are speaking in love, not in our own “rightness.” A lack of patience and a lack of tolerance for the opinions of others lead people to tune out any message of the gospel. God is certainly patient with us, let’s be patient with everyone.