Open Heavens Devotional by Pastor E.A. Adeboye
Memorise: Knowing this, that the trying of your faith
worketh patience. James 1:3
Read: James 1:3-4
Patience is an indispensable virtue for all believers in
Christ. In the first place, the race we are called into can only be run through
patience because it is a marathon. (Hebrew 12:1) Also, there is hardly any
promise of God that can be fulfilled in the life of believers without the
combination of faith and patience (Hebrew 6:12). As indispensable as faith is
to a Christian, so also is patience. No wonder it is part of the fruit of the
spirit- longsuffering (Galatians 5:22). Do you know that when your faith is
being tried, God uses that trial to generate patience in you (James 1:3)? This
implies that the longer the period of trial, the greater your level of
patience. But, when you fail to handle a particular trial of faith the way you
should, it will not generate the level of patience that it should. For this
reason, many who have gone through trials and complained throughout, grumbled
against God, saw God as the opposition or even dropped in their personal
obedience or commitment to God, ended up with little or no increase in
patience.
If you have a lot of patience, you are rich. Like faith,
patience is needed in virtually every area. According to today’s reading,
patience has a divine assignment to perform in our lives that will make us
perfect. There is no perfection without patience and without perfection you
cannot see God. So to see God, you need patience. Patience can attract God’s
mercy to qualify the unqualified. We see this in the case of the Syrophenician
woman who approached the Lord for the deliverance of her daughter. Even when
the Lord ignored her and she was virtually called a “dog”, she persisted in the
presence of the Lord. At last, her patience qualified her for the miracle her
demographics had disqualified her from (Mark 7:25-30). How much patience do you
have? Some leaders brag about how impatient they are without knowing how
impoverished that makes them. Ask God for the grace to build more deposits of
patience until you are rich in patience and it shows.
ACTION POINT:
Until patience has its full impact in your life, you cannot
be what you were meant to be. Ask that God will make you perfect through
patience.
Bible in one year: Psalms 10-12
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