Faithful on Fridays Blog

Part Five

Love, joy, and peace … ahh, such wonderful attributes of God and eventually grown in our character as we strive to be like Him. However, our fruit for today is a little more challenging: patience. When ripened this fruit is persevering and longsuffering; it has staying power and Holy Spirit strength (Rom. 15:5). 

Since the fruit of the Spirit is God Himself listen to what He declared to Moses as He stood with him:

“Yahweh! The Lord! The God of compassion and mercy! I am slow to anger and filled with unfailing love and faithfulness.” Exodus 34:6

The people of Israel deserved His wrath but instead received mercy as God stood with them. Now, don’t get me wrong, God does have His limits (see Ex. 4) but His nature is patient and longsuffering. That’s true for us as well.

What is patience? It means you burn long and strong. It’s experiencing strong, even fierce, emotion but keeping it under control. Patience is enduring and constant; it suffers long and doesn’t have Plan B. If I was God I would’ve scratched Plan A and tried another one: not God. He burns long and strong for us.

And the seeds that fell on the good soil represent honest, good-hearted people who hear God’s word, cling to it, and patiently produce a huge harvest. Luke 8:15

Jesus promised if we would burn long and strong, being patient, a ginormous harvest would come! Get ready … it’s coming.

And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us. Hebrews 12:1c

There are people allowed in our life by God that give us opportunity for endurance training (do I hear an Amen?), fortunately, we don’t endure in our own power or strength but in His. 

We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know they help us develop endurance. And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation. And this hope will not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us, because He has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with His love. Romans 5:3-5

This isn’t about will-power but about Spirit-power. Jesus never intended us to have the ability to go it alone, that’s why He gave us the empowerment of the indwelling Spirit.

Emotions are observable, consequently, they’re reflected in our bodies. Passion for good or evil (rage) causes an increased heart rate, heavy breathing, and a red face. Check yourself: God gifted us with this ability for passion but it’s our goal to keep it burning, long and strong, for good.

He will render to each one according to his works: to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, He will give eternal life; Romans 2:6-7

Be patient with irregular people, have the steadfastness of Christ (2 Thes. 3:5), since He is patient with you.