GOD’S RELENTLESS LOVE

It's safe to give ourselves up to God's love.  He created us out of love and His love is never wearied or worn out by our sins.  He is relentless in His pursuit of us and in His determination that one day we will be pure love, at whatever cost to us or to Himself.

"Good and upright is the Lord," the psalmist reminds us, "therefore He instructs sinners in His ways.  He guides the humble in what is right and teaches them His way" (Psalm 25:8-9, italics added).  The only requirement is humility and the patience to wait for His working.  God is not known for haste, but He does mean business. 

-- David Roper in “Growing Slowly Wise” 

#6399

FAITHFUL WAITING

"Be patient, then, brothers and sisters, until the Lord’s coming. See how the farmer waits for the land to yield its valuable crop, patiently waiting for the autumn and spring rains. You too, be patient and stand firm, because the Lord’s coming is near."  (James 5:7–8 NIV)

In a world of instant results and endless urgency, James draws us into the quiet strength of a farmer waiting for the rains. No crop matures overnight. No growth unfolds without trust in what’s unseen.

This is the rhythm of faith -- not passive resignation, but faithful anticipation. Patience and perseverance are not weak, but deeply courageous. We wait with hope. We endure with resolve. Because we know the harvest is promised by a God who never forgets His Word. 

-- SOUND BITES Ministry™

#6363

RESTING ON THE HEART OF JESUS

“Lord, my heart is not proud; my eyes are not haughty. I don’t concern myself with matters too great or too awesome for me to grasp. Instead, I have calmed and quieted myself, like a weaned child who no longer cries for its mother’s milk. Yes, like a weaned child is my soul within me. O Israel, put your hope in the Lord.”  (Psalm 131:1-3 NLT)

If I did not simply live from one moment to the next, it would be impossible for me to keep my patience.

I can see only the present, I forget the past and I take good care not to think about the future.  We get discouraged and feel despair because we brood about the past and future. 

It is such folly to pass one's time fretting, instead of resting quietly on the heart of Jesus. 

-- Therese of Lisieux (1873-1897), quoted in “A Guide to Prayer for All God's People” by Rueben P. Job and Norman Shawchuck

DEVELOPING A NEW PERSPECTIVE - Part 1 of 2

“Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.”  (Philippians 2:3-4 NIV)

Patience begins by changing the way you view something. When I am impatient, I have a limited perspective. All I see is myself: my needs, my desires, my goals, my wants, my schedule, and how people are messing up my life. The root of impatience is selfishness. So I need to get a new perspective on life from other people’s point of view.

Would you like to know the secret of success? If you want to be a successful husband or wife, learn to see life from your partner’s point of view. If you want to be a successful parent, learn to see life from your child’s point of view. If you want to be a successful business person, learn to see life from your customers’ point of view. If you want to be a successful employer, learn to see life from your employee’s point of view. Look at the situation from the other’s point of view and discover why that person feels as he or she does. I don’t know of anything that has greater potential for reducing conflict in your life. 

-- Rick Warren in “God’s Power to Change Your Life”

#5838

MATURE CHRISTIAN DISCIPLESHIP

“They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.”  (Acts 2:42 NIV)

One aspect of the world that I have been able to identify as harmful to Christians is the assumption that anything worthwhile can be acquired at once. We assume that if something can be done at all, it can be done quickly and efficiently. Our attention spans have been conditioned by thirty-second commercials. Our sense of reality has been flattened by thirty-page abridgments.

It is not difficult in such a world to get a person interested in the message of the gospel; it is terrifically difficult to sustain the interest. Millions of people in our culture make decisions for Christ, but there is a dreadful attrition rate. Many claim to be born again, but the evidence for mature Christian discipleship is slim. In our kind of culture anything, even news about God, can be sold if it is packaged freshly; but when it loses its novelty, it goes on the garbage heap. There is a great market for religious experience in our world; there is little enthusiasm for the patient acquisition of virtue, little inclination to sign up for a long apprenticeship in what earlier generations of Christians called holiness. 

-- Eugene Peterson in “A Long Obedience in the Same Direction”

#5712

FOCUSING ON THE LORD’S PRESENCE

“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.”  (Revelation 1:8)

Wait patiently with Me while I bless you. Don’t rush into My Presence with time-consciousness gnawing at our mind. I dwell in timelessness: I am, I was, I will be always. For you, time is a protection; you’re a frail creature who can handle only twenty-four-hour segments of life. Time can be a tyrant, ticking away relentlessly in your mind. Learn to master time, or it will master you.

Though you are a time-bound creature, seek to meet Me in timelessness. As you focus on My Presence, the demands of time and tasks will diminish. I will bless you and keep you, making My face shine upon you graciously, giving you Peace. (Numbers 6:24-26) 

-- Adapted from “Jesus Calling: Enjoying Peace in His Presence” by Sarah Young 

#5526

SLOWLY BUT SURELY

“Wait patiently for the LORD. Be brave and courageous. Yes, wait patiently for the LORD.”  (Psalm 27:14 NLT)

The things that matter most take time, effort, patience, sacrifice, discipline, and deep commitment. Too much, too soon, too easily… is the perfect formula for frustration, heartache, and mediocrity. When we GET too easily and REACH too quickly, we tend to APPRECIATE too lightly. To be sure, some things you can get immediately by pushing buttons or paying money down or by pulling out a plastic card. But great things, the real values, do not come that way; they have to be grown and cultivated. You can get a sports car or a [smart] TV with a quick down payment, but character, morality, integrity, maturity, spiritual strength -- these you have to wait for, work for, want intensely, commit to, and cultivate and grow slowly but surely.

-- James W. Moore and Bob J. Moore in “Lord, Give Me Patience!... And Give It to Me Right Now!”

#4370

GOD’S PROMISED BLESSINGS

"You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what He has promised."  (Hebrews 10:36)

God's promised blessings can be nipped in the bud. For their fulfillment resembles the blooming of a rose. The bud forms, hard and small and green, nothing particularly attractive. Yet, bound tightly inside are the forming petals, soft and red and delicate. The petals grow unseen. Only later as the rose blooms do we see their beauty. So it is with God's work. His perfect plans for us are forming in the bud -- [hidden] -- and as we persevere, we will, in God's perfect time, see them blossom.

-- Craig Brian Larson


#4234

EXERCISING PATIENCE

“I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display His perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in Him for eternal life.”  (1 Timothy 1:16)

We commonly associate patience with lying down. We think of it as the angel that guards the couch of the invalid. Yet there is a patience that I believe to be harder -- the patience that can ruin. To lie down in the time of grief, to be quiet under the stroke of adverse fortune, implies a great strength. But I know of something that implies a strength greater still. It is the power to work under stress, to continue under hardship, to have anguish in your spirit and still perform daily tasks. This is a Christ-like thing. The hardest thing is that most of us are called to exercise patience, not in the sick bed, but in the street.

-- George Matheson, quoted by Joni Eareckson Tada in “Glorious Intruder”

#4137

WAIT ON THE LORD

"They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength."  (Isaiah 40:31)

God doesn't tell us how He'll answer our prayers, or even when, but He does promise those who wait on Him one thing -- strength. Tony Evans points out that the word "wait" comes from a Hebrew word used in the making of rope. Every rope starts as a thread, and every thread added just increases its strength. Getting the idea? Every time you wait on the Lord you add another thread to the rope; you get a little stronger, a little more able to cope. Feel like you're just hanging on by a thread? Wait in God's presence and let Him turn it into a rope.

But waiting is not always passive, sometimes it's active; like waiting on a customer, seeing that his or her needs are met. Waiting is not so much a position, as it is a focus. Isaiah says, "Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed [focused] on Thee" (Isa 26:3). Whether it's sitting prayerfully in God's presence, or actively carrying out His will, you've got His assurance that your strength will be renewed. Listen to these promises:
      (1) "Wait on the Lord; be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart; wait, I say, on the Lord" (Psalm 27:14 NKJV).
      (2) "Wait silently for God alone, for my expectation is from Him" (Psalm 62:5 NKJV).
      (3) "As the eyes of servants look to the hand of their masters... so our eyes look to  the Lord our God" (Ps 123:2 NKJV).

Need more strength? Wait on God more!

-- Source Unknown, from a subscriber in Pennsylvania

#4117

PATIENT WAITING

Jesus said, "And now I will send the Holy Spirit, just as my Father promised. But stay here in the city until the Holy Spirit comes and fills you with power from heaven." (Luke 24:49 NIV)

A waiting person is a patient person. The word patience means the willingness to stay where we are and live out the situation to the full in the belief that something hidden there will manifest itself to us... Patient people dare to stay where they are. Patient living means to live actively in the present and wait there... nurturing the moment.

-- Henri J.M. Nouwen in an article titled "A Spirituality of Waiting"


#3508

PATIENCE WITH YOURSELF

Have patience with all things, but chiefly have patience with yourself.  Do not lose courage in considering your own imperfections but instantly set about remedying them -- every day begin the task anew.

-- Francois de Sales (1567-1622)


#3325

GOD WILL FREELY GIVE

"Since God did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for the sake of all of us, then can we not expect that with Christ God will freely give us all His gifts?" (Romans 8:32)

"Freely give" means to give lavishly.  What do I need today?  Strength?  Peace?  Patience?  Heavenly joy?  Industry?  Good temper?  Power to help others?  Inward contentment?  Courage?   Whatever it be, my God will lavish it upon me.

-- Amy Carmichael in Edges of His Ways


#3298

PATIENT TRUST

Waiting on the Lord requires patient trust.  Will I trust that God has good reasons for saying "wait"?  Will I remember that things look different to God because he views things from an eternal perspective? . . .

The story goes that an economist once read these words and got very excited. "Lord -- is it true that a thousand years for us is just like a minute to you?"

"Yes."

"Then a million dollars to us must just be a penny to you."

"Yes."

"Lord, would you give me one of those pennies?"

"All right.  Wait here a minute."

Too often we want God's resources, but we do not want his timing.  We want the penny, but not the minute.  We forget that His work in us while we wait is as important as what it is we think we are waiting for.  Waiting means that we give God the benefit of the doubt that He knows what He is doing.

It may be patient trust -- trust that is willing to wait again and again day after day.  

-- John Ortberg in If You Want to Walk on Water, You've Got to Get Out of the Boat


#3085

STEADFAST ENDURANCE

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us. We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, the champion who initiates and perfects our faith. Because of the joy awaiting Him, He endured the cross, disregarding its shame. Now He is seated in the place of honor beside God’s throne. Think of all the hostility He endured from sinful people; then you won’t become weary and give up.”  (Hebrews 12:1-3 NLT)

The word is hupomone, which does not mean the [patient endurance] which sits down and accepts things but the [patient endurance] which masters them.  It is not some romantic thing, which lends us wings to fly over the difficulties and the hard places.  It is the determination, unhurrying and yet undelaying, which goes steadily on and refuses to be deflected.  Obstacles do not daunt it and discouragements do not take its hope away.  It is the steadfast endurance which carries on until in the end it gets there. 

-- William Barclay in The Letter to the Hebrews


#3043

CHIPPING AWAY

A sculptor was asked how he could carve a lion's head out of a large block of marble. "I just chip away everything that doesn't look like a lion's head," was his reply. God works away in our being and chips away everything that doesn't look like Christ -- the impatience, the short temper, the pride, the emotional drives that lead us away from our Father. He's shaping us into His image. That's His predetermined plan. And He's committed to it. Nothing we can do will dissuade Him from that plan. He stays at it. He is relentless. And He never runs out of creative ideas.

-- Charles R. Swindoll in The Mystery of God's Will


#3027

PERFECT TIMING

The source of strength I get from my relationship with Christ is knowing that through my trials I should have patience; the Lord is perfect with His timing.

-- John Vanbiesbrouck, retired NHL goal tender



#2813

CONFIDENCE IN GOD'S GOODNESS

It is natural for children to trust their parents, even though parents sometimes fail to keep their promises. Our heavenly Father, however, never makes promises He won't keep. Nevertheless, His plan may take more time than we expect. Rather than acting like impatient children as we wait for God's will to unfold, we should place our confidence in God's goodness and wisdom. Yet even the most patient children will groan in anticipation when what they are waiting for is wonderful.

-- Life Application Bible Commentary on Romans


#2514