Theme:

"Living and Enjoying 
the Fruit of the Spirit"

Day 5:

Fruit:  Longsuffering (Patience)

Day Verse:

"If ye abide in Me, and My words abide in
you, ye shall ask what ye will and it shall be done unto you.  Herein is My Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be My Disciples"--John 15:7, 8

Our Lord never asks us to be anything He is not Himself.  He is "longsuffering" to believers, "not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance" (II Peter 3:9).  Our loving heavenly Father pities all of us, for He knows "our frame--how weak we are--and how short our life on earth is.  His mercy is "from everlasting" (Psalm 103:13-17

What is "longsuffering"?  It is L-O-N-G-suffering!  And most of us are short on that virtue.  We are short-suffering.  Naturally, we are impatient if things don't go fast enough for us.  How little we know about being steadfast, unmovable Christians! 

When the Apostle Paul wanted to give godly advice to the young preacher, Timothy, he wrote him, "Preach the Word, be instant (urgent, or zealous), in season, out of season (regardless of the weather!); reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine (teaching)" (II Timothy 4:2).  The only way we naturally impatient creatures can develop longsuffering is by diligently reading and heeding God's Word and constantly depending on the Holy Spirit to line us up with what God says we should be and do. 

Longsuffering definitely includes "stick-to-itiveness"--it is linked with determination and perseverance.  The Lord's work is important.  It must be done.  How many of you are good at starting things but not finishing them?  You get tired before a job is done, or you become discouraged.  What employer will keep you on your payroll if you conduct your secular work the way you work for the Lord? 

If you are short on longsuffering, why not print Galatians 5:9 on a card, and prop it up on your dresser?  You will often be grateful for the reminder not to be weary in well doing, for in due time you will reap a reward if you don't faint--that is get discouraged.  Don't let the devil, the master-hinderer, or your own laziness frustrate or stop you.  Anyone can say, "My hands are tied.  I've done all I can do." 

But have you prayed?  You haven't done all you can do about anything until you have talked the situation over thoroughly with the Lord.  Your first memory verse today reminds you that if you will abide in Christ and let His words abide or remain in you, you may ask whatever you may ask whatever you wish that is according to God's will, and he will surely answer your prayer.

And, don't forget, you haven't done all you can do until you let God's Word exhort you, "stir you up with all LONGSUFFERING."

Longsuffering also is patient endurance of wrong under ill treatment, without getting angry or wanting to get even.  When your soul is provoked beyond human endurance, you can count on Christ's divine endurance to help you to overcome.  You all know what it is to have to live with someone, or work with someone, who irritates you and "rubs you the wrong way."  Your natural tendency is to "tell her where to get off."  But, remember you belong to the Lord and want to obey Him.  Then, you must love that one whom you can't like.  Strange as that seems, it can be done if you will honestly ask the Lord to put His love in your heart to overcome your natural dislike.  "Love suffereth long" (I Corinthians 13:4).

You can see that longsuffering is linked up with love, as are the other parts of the fruit of the Spirit.  If we don't want to be "lop-sided" Christians we must constantly cultivate each part of our character-cluster.  Sometimes we develop part of our character more than others.  If only we could X-ray our hearts, we would look something like shriveled grapes, but we want to replace those shriveled grapes with mature ones of LOVE< PEACE, LONGSUFFERING. 

Surely, we don't want God's fruit to be unbalanced or lacking.  We want the Holy Spirit to control our hearts and minds so completely that we are loving and joyful and peaceful and longsuffering and gentle and good and faithful and meek and self-controlled in jus the proportion He wants us to be.

Is that too difficult?  Christ would not have set this standard if it were not possible for us naturally hot-headed human beings to yield all of ourselves to the Holy Spirit and cooperate with Him so that He can restrain us from wrong thoughts and actions and conform us to right ones.  The Holy Spirit will do that for us if we do our part.  But we can't lazily turn ourselves and our problems over to Him and not exert ourselves.  To grow strong spiritually, we must exercise our free will, our power to choose between right and wrong, our ability to say NO to temptation.  We must not only pray to be loving, longsuffering, etc., but we must act, also.

 Just as soon as we are willing for SELF to die and are anxious to make a clean sweep of our pet sins, the Holy Spirit will know we are cooperating with Him.  Then He will strengthen us and give us Christ's own power and wisdom or whatever else we need. 

As branches, we have a marvelous privilege in being close to the Vine and having Christ's very life flowing through us.

The second verse of our memory verse says that in proportion as we bear "much fruit" do we glorify our Savior.  Perhaps longsuffering is the part of our fruit cluster that we find most difficult to bear.  Let's follow this verse from God's Word to help us develop longsuffering:

"Rejoicing in hope,
Patient in tribulation,
Persistent (instant) in prayer."
Romans 12:12