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Patience
August 3, 2013

Last week, I wrote about how self-control is part of our spiritual development. Peter shows that next in our life comes patience.

2 Peter 1: 5-11
And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity. For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But he that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins. Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure: for if ye do these things, ye shall never fall: For so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

I like to think of this verse as providing the taxonomy of spiritual development. Patience is the ability to endure anything that life may throw at us, the good and the bad. In reality television land, it is the outlast of the outwit, outplay, and outlast of the television show Survivor. While we might all like to win a reality television show and the million dollar prize, the Bible provides other views on patience.

James 1:2-4
My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; 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.

Some look at physical life as a reflection of the blessings of God and while there are blessings in the physical luxuries of life, the blessings that God intends for us are spiritual in nature, and God can take a situation that looks bad from the viewpoint of physical life to provide a spiritual blessing. Sometimes the most challenging circumstances of life allow us to develop patience, and when our faith is challenged, that becomes an exercise in developing patience. When we surrender ourselves to the will of God, we allow patience to lead us to the spiritual state of perfection. While Revelation 14 shows that keeping commandments is a type of patience, Hebrews shows that faith and patience are keys to inheriting the promises.

Hebrews 6:9-12
But, beloved, we are persuaded better things of you, and things that accompany salvation, though we thus speak. For God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labour of love, which ye have shewed toward his name, in that ye have ministered to the saints, and do minister. And we desire that every one of you do shew the same diligence to the full assurance of hope unto the end: That ye be not slothful, but followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises.

We are people of faith because we believe in the promises. Through faith, belief that we will inherit the promises, and through patience, the ability to endure all that life may through at us that challenges our faith, we position ourselves to grow closer to receiving the promises. As we live lives of faith and patience, we celebrate what is good, embrace what is good, and do what is good.

All verses are from the King James Version.
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