Have Patience 4

Hello Everyone!

Being a God of patience, or, slow to anger, He was always ready to grant forgiveness and bestow His grace on His people.

One writer says this: “The majestic, omnipotent God graciously restrains His righteous wrath and offers pardon and forgiveness to whosoever will come through repentance and accept His grace.”

Jonah had a problem with God’s patience and willingness to forgive the "big sinners" of his day.

Like a lot of us, he had to learn this truth about his God the hard way.

Our God is merciful, gracious, ready to forgive, abounding in steadfast love, and very, very patient.

We also see this in the New Testament. Peter says, "Bear in mind that our Lord’s patience means salvation" (2 Peter 3:15, NIV).

God’s patience, or slowness in unleashing His wrath, is not because of leniency or an unwillingness to act.

His patience is an opportunity for us to repent and trust Him as Savior.

In His patience, the Father waits, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to the Him and trust Him.

In writing to Timothy, Paul tells how he had blasphemed the Savior and persecuted His followers. He claimed to be the “chief of sinners”.

But Jesus was patient. He waited until Saul was ready to say,  “I surrender all!"

Patiently, God always waits! Not only does He wait, but He even pursues us with His abounding love.

George Matheson captures this perfectly in the hymn:

O Love that wilt not let me go,
I rest my weary soul in Thee;
I give Thee back the life I owe,
That in Thine ocean depths its flow
May richer, fuller be.

That’s the response God wants from us.

It’s the perfect response to His perfect love, a love patiently pursuing us until we quit running from Him and say,

"I rest my weary soul in Thee and Thy grace, O God"; then, "I give Thee back the life I owe."

Our gracious God is so loving and so patient, how can we talk about His patience and our patience at the same time?

It’s because He’s the Source.

·        We don’t develop patience.

·        He GROWS it in our heart when we trust and obey Him.

·        It is the fruit of HIS Spirit working in us.

How many times has He called your name and we turned a deaf ear.

How many times have we fallen into the same old sin and He graciously took us back.

How many times have we worried and worried and the whole time He was saying trust me just trust me.

"Bear in mind that our Lord’s patience means salvation"

(2 Peter 3:15, NIV).

Greater Things Are Still To Come!