“For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope. Now the God of patience and consolation grant you to be likeminded one toward another according to Christ Jesus:”(Romans 15:4-5).

You see, “faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Romans 10:17); and God often tests that faith in order to produce patience in our lives:

“Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.” (James 1:3-4).

Impatience is more than an “American trait.” According to the Bible, impatience is an evidence of PRIDE—an evidence that I think that MY schedule and MY time are more important that anything else:

“... the patient in spirit is better than the proud of spirit.”(Ecclesiastes 7:8).

No wonder God describes the Bible as “the word of my patience”(Revelation 3:10)!

Forgive me, Lord! How could I have overlooked and ignored Your desire that patience have a perfect work in my life so I myself “may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing”!

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How important is patience?

— Patience is so important that God desires that all people hear His words with honest and good hearts, that they believe and keep those words, and that in keeping them, they “bring forth fruit with patience” (Luke 8:15).

— Patience is so important that God commands believers to “be patient toward all men” (1 Thessalonians 5:14) as they “run with patience” (Hebrews 12:1).

— Patience is so important that God lists it as one of the evidences of spiritual maturity (2 Peter 1:6).

— Patience is so important that God says that aged men in a congregation should not only be doctrinally “sound in faith” but also doctrinally sound in charity and patience (Titus 2:2).

— Patience is so important that God commended three churches for having it (Revelation 2:2-3, 19 and 3:11).

— Patience is so important that God includes it in His listing of the qualifications of a bishop (1 Timothy 3:3) as an essential quality of the teaching ministry of any “servant of the Lord”:

“And the servant of the Lord must not strive; but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient, In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves; if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth;” (2 Timothy 2:24-25).

— Patience is so important that God’s ministers should follow after it just as surely as they follow after faith, righteousness, godliness, and love (1 Timothy 6:11).

— Patience is so important that three times the apostle Paul listed it as a characteristic of his ministry (2 Corinthians 6:4 and 12:12; 2 Timothy 3:10).

— Patience is so important that Paul prayed that God would strengthen other believers so they would be patient (Colossians 1:11).

No wonder God said, “Ye have need of patience” (Hebrews 10:36)!

Abraham sinned through impatience. He grew weary of waiting for the seed of promise and heeded his wife’s carnal suggestion for how to produce an heir. Jacob sinned through impatience. Instead of waiting for God to fulfill his word, he listened to his mother’s carnal suggestion for how to obtain his birthright. Moses sinned through impatience, murdering an Egyptian instead of waiting on God’s direction and deliverance. Paul sinned through impatience, disobeying God’s repeated warnings that he not go to Jerusalem. If impatience produced disaster in the lives of men as great as these, how much more does it produce disaster in the lives of someone like me?

In a sense, each of the Lord’s temptations was a temptation to be impatient (Matthew 4; Luke 4). The Lord is scheduled to receive all the kingdoms of this world as His very own possession. The Lord is scheduled to descend from heaven and to appear in the Jewish temple. The Lord has already promised to prepare food in the wilderness when He feeds the nation of Israel during the period of great tribulation. The temptations to turn stones into bread, to cast Himself down from the top of the temple, and to worship Satan in exchange for the worlds’ kingdoms were therefore temptations to act impatiently instead of waiting patiently on God. When they follow their Lord and Savior—when they walk as he walked—believers will act in patience.

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Thank you, Lord, for my troubles.

“I know, O LORD, that thy judgments are right, and that thou in faithfulness hast afflicted me. Let, I pray thee, thy merciful kindness be for my comfort, according to thy word unto thy servant”(Psalm 119:75-76).

Amen! May it true of all of us as it was of David,

“Before I was afflicted, I went astray: but now have I kept thy word. Thou art good, and doest good ...” (Psalm 119:67-68).

—Bro. Daryl (Titus 2:11-14)
July 3, 2010