Skip to main content

The Fruit of Patience

There is a saying in church circles – mostly spoken in jest – that a Christian should “never pray for patience.” The reason being, if you pray for patience the Lord will bring circumstances into your life to teach you patience.

We understand the point of the joke. We are impatient people and wish to avoid any situation where we might have to be patient.

But we must see this as a joke and dismiss it as a joke, hoping that no one actually takes it seriously. The truth of the matter is we should pray for patience, practice patience, and desire to be patient people.

Why? Because patience is a fruit of the Spirit. “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control” (Galatians 5:22-23a, ESV).

The fruit of the Spirit is not like the gifts of the Spirit. Spiritual gifts are given to believers by the Spirit for the work of the church. Every Christian has at least one.

But the fruit of the Spirit is the evidence of the Holy Spirit living inside of the believer. We do not bear one or two fruits of the Spirit, but all of them. Just as an apple tree produces apples and an orange tree produces oranges, so the Holy Spirit produces the characteristics of his divine nature within us.

Being patient is proof that we have been born again. We should both pray and desire to be patient people. And if we find some hindrance to our patience, we should seek to remove it quickly.

Love In Christ,
Pastor Mitch

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Generation of Mark 13:30

At the beginning of Mark chapter thirteen Jesus is leaving the temple area and one of his disciples points out the grandure of the temple buildings. Jesus' remark to that disciple concerns the fact that these buildings will one day be torn down. The disciples question Him further as to the times of these events, and so begins an extended teaching from Jesus on the end times.As Jesus' remarks are drawing to a close, He makes this comment in Mark 13:30: "Truly I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place." (NASB) So the reader is left to wonder the meaning of this statement. Either our understanding of generation is wrong, or we are understanding what Jesus meant by "these things" wrong. I think there are at least two solutions. The word for generation (genea: Greek) could mean, as some side column reference Bibles note, "the human race". This is possible, since the events have not all happened and the human race...
15 comments
Read more

By This Time You Ought To Be Teachers

June 1, 2006 Sin has a way of crippling us and it is not as obvious as we might think. Sin is subtle and comes to us in the most gentle of ways. When the writer of Hebrews attempts to encourage the church to remain diligent to the faith he does it by writing a letter filled with warnings. One of those warnings has to do with the connection between disobedience and unbelief (3:18-19). Disobedience is equated with unbelief in these two verses, because Israel did not enter the land of rest by disobeying God, rather they failed to believe that God would keep His word to them. Disobedience is the fruit of failing to hear God’s word. At first this does not seem to apply to us at all. We hear God’s word all week long. Or do we? When sin settles into our hearts it begins to harden our senses (3:13). We do not hear God’s word like we used to and preaching, as well as Bible lessons, begin to sound more like traffic noise from the freeway than words spoken to us from God. The writer of Hebrews re...
Post a Comment
Read more

Confession: An Old Principle Revisited

Originally written on July 24, 2005 On Tuesday The Oprah Winfrey Show aired an episode devoted to people who had suffered tremendous loss at the hands of other individuals. These parties were brought together under the pressure of extreme emotional scaring and anger. When these individuals were in front of each other they were asked to retell their side of the story, recall all of their feelings, admit their wrong doing, and ultimately ask for forgiveness from the individual that they had harmed. This so-called new approach has been labeled as "restorative justice." Oprah called it a radical new approach to emotional healing and was in awe at the success people found who took part in the exercise. What was not brought to the light was the fact that this approach is radical, but it is by no means new. In the New Testament James understood this principle very well. In James 5:16 he states "Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, so that you m...
2 comments
Read more