1. Patience
By Evelyn Pointer

2. Patience
What is patience? The dictionary says that patience is forbearing
pains or trials calmly or without complaint. Job complained or
expressed his pain and suffering so we must amend the
dictionary definition. The type of complaint that we must not do
is the way that the children of Israel complained in the
wilderness, murmuring against God and expressing anger.Job
while expressing his grief, even as Christ also did in the psalms
and prior to his crucifixion, never lost his integrity. The second
definition of patience in the dictionary is better. It means
manifesting forbearance under provocation or strain. For bear
means to control oneself. Another definition is to be steadfast
despite opposition, difficulty or adversity. Let us define patience
as steadfast obedience to God under tribulation or adversity.

3. Patience and obedience
When you obey God, and when you can control yourself “My brethren, count it all
and your actions even under very adverse conditions, joy when ye fall into
keeping your integrity, you are showing patience. diverse temptations;
knowing this, that the
trying of your faith
The actual Hebrew meaning of the word patience includes worketh patience. But let
long suffering and endurance. Long suffering is long and patience have her perfect
patience endurance of offense. God is long suffering to his work, that ye may be
perfect and endure,
children as well as to the children of the devil. He gives
wanting nothing.” James 1:
everyone time to obey. He does not destroy them at the first 2-4.
offense and usually not even after many offenses. Number
14:18, II Peter 3:9, Romans 9:22, Ecclesiasticus 18:8-14. To be
long suffering is one of the fruits of the spirit which brings
us into the likeness of God. Galatians 5:22, Colossians
1:10-11. We must be long suffering to each other. Ephesians
4: 1-3, Colossians 3:12-13.

4. Patience and Endurance
Endurance means the ability to withstand hardship or adversity, the ability to sustain a long
stress effort. Christ speaks about the last days in Matthew chapter 24, and he says in verse
13-”but he that shall endure until the end the same shall be saved.” It is necessary to have
endurance because we must all go through hardship and adversity. In fact God proves us,
whether we will obey or not with trials and afflictions and sacrifice. It is relatively easy to
obey God when all things are going well and when no sacrifice is required of you. The young
man who Christ spoke to who wanted eternal life said that he had kept the law since his
youth , but Christ looking at him knew his weakness and he tried him, he said sell all that you
have and give to the poor and follow me. The young man went away sorrowful because he
could not make the sacrifice. He could obey the law as long as he did not have to sacrifice the
comforts of this life. Christ also taught us what happens when someone has no endurance
with his parable of the sower and the seed. Matthew 13: 3-6, Mark 4: 16-17

5. Patience leads to Perfection
The description of Charity in I Corinthians chapter 13 (Which
we know is divine love in perfection) includes being long
suffering and having endurance. verse 7 says “beareth all
things, believeth all things, hopeth all things and endureth all
things.”
Christ calls upon us to wait on him, which means to watch, to
remain ready, always looking for and expecting him. Luke 12:
35-40. And how do we as good watchmen wait on God and
remain ready? We must be sober, we must be awake and we
must wear the whole armor of God.

6. Suffering Affliction
In this life we must all suffer. it is a condition of living that
applies to all men. In order to be saved we must also suffer. We
have to take on Christ. To be like Christ we must be perfect. We
must be obedient as he was to his father, and we must suffer
like him. He was described by the prophet Isaiah in Isaiah 53: 3
as “a man of sorrow and acquainted with grief.” We must also
have sorrow and grief. christ showed us that we can suffer
affliction and still obey the Lord. He showed us that we can
sacrifice to God. Did he not sacrifice his life to save ours? We
can remain steadfast, we can wait upon our redeemer. This
suffering is the cross of Christ. Matthew 16: 24-26. It is through
this suffering, this sacrifice, this obedience to God that the old
man of sin is mortified. Galatians 5: 24. We die in Christ but we
also overcome this world as Christ did and we live in newness
of life. We must all carry the cross of Christ. Romans 8:16-18, II
Timothy 3:12.

7. learning to be steadfast
In Revelations chapter 3, Christ said to the church of Philadelphia that because
they kept the word of his patience that he would also keep them from the hour of
temptation which shall come upon all the world. The word of Christ’s patience is
obedience to the law under tribulation. We suffer under tribulation. Tribulation is
distress or suffering resulting from persecution. Christ suffered abuse because of
persecution. The prophets suffered tribulation. Many people have lost their lives
because of the word of God. Others, not losing as much, have lost jobs,
opportunities and the love of their families and friends. Trying to hold on to these
things by sitting on the fence is to deny the cross of Christ. Acts 14:21-22. But when
you are persecuted for obeying God. Christ said, “rejoice and be exceeding glad: for
great is your reward in heaven for so persecuted they the prophets which were
before you.”

8. Two types of sorrow
We also sorrow. There are two kinds of sorrows. Godly sorrow is from
the spirit of mourning and leads to repentance. The sorrow of the world
leads to death. This sorrow is when people feel regret and frustration
because they cannot have the things they want or live the life they want
or be with the people they want. They may be grieving over the loss of
the this common life. They may be grieving because of aging, illness or
loss of beauty, jobs and relationships. This sorrow leads to depression
and can lead to death. This comes of the spirit of the devil and is not of
God. These people want a happier better common life, they are not
interested in eternal life or the kingdom of heaven. II Corinthians 7:0.

9. The purpose of suffering
What does suffering get you? How does it benefit you? Well tribulation leadeth to patience,
patience to experience and experience to hope and hope leads to the love of God. Romans 5:
3-5. James 1: 2-4 says,”Let patience have her perfect work that ye may be perfect and entire.”
Matthew 5: 10-12 says it is a blessing to be persecuted for righteousness sake. James 1: 12
says we will receive a crown of life. You will suffer in this world whether you are a child of
God or not. the wicked suffer as well as the righteous. The conditions of this common life is
a law that is decreed upon all men. You live, you can choose to do good or evil, you suffer
and you die. It is the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. The evil in the fruit
includes not only wickedness that you do, but because of sin and death it includes sorrow,
hardship, distress, disease and ultimately death to every person whether they are a child of
God or not. This is common suffering. Common suffering can be made worse because of
poor decisions, such as a poor choice of spouse, not working,
not getting an education, becoming involved with bad people,
making poor financial choices. Some people suffer a lot
because they are doing evil. They commit crimes and are put in
jail, or they do not obey the company’s rules and they lose their
job. It is not a blessing to you if you suffer and you were in the
wrong. You were getting what you deserve. I Peter 2: 19-24. I
Peter 3: 17.

10. Pathways
When you walk in the broad way, not seeking God, you suffer.
When you walk on the straight and narrow path you also suffer,
but Christ walks with you, The Holy Ghost comforts you and the
Wisdom of God counsels you and helps you out of your troubles,
and in the end, with patient endurance a crown of life awaits you.
We also suffer with punishment and chastisement of the Lord.
God does chastise his children to purge them and lead them back
to the right path. Hebrews 12:6-7.
God chastises his children with mercy to lead them to repentance
but with the wicked he reserves the fierce anger of his judgment. It
may seem as if wicked people often get away with things but
every on of them will suffer hell before the second death. They
will know that they are lost, without hope, all of their sins will
come back to their minds and will haunt and torment them,
anguish, distress, fear, horror, terror, all await the wicked. They
will suffer in this hell for as long as it has been judged according
to their works.

11. Suffering
No one wants to suffer. It is never pleasant. Some people grieve long and
hard. They even die of broken hearts. We have to fight against the
tendency to focus so much on our troubles; forgetting the mercies of God
and the promise of his coming. Doing this can be harmful to your health.
It is Satan that wants to destroy you in this way. He torments us by
constantly bring troubles to our minds in order to erode our hope and
faith in God. Ecclesiasticus 30: 21-23. We must always remember that we
have hope because God is always with us. In our worst times and in our
greatest sorrows he is there.

12. Patience and tribulation
Therefore we have something to be thankful Troubled: ! worried, disturbed
Distress: ! overcome by great
for each and everyday. We rejoice even in our
difficulties
tribulation. Paul describes suffering with Perplexed:! full of difficulty,
hope in II Corinthians 4:8-10. What Paul uncertainty
means is even though we are worried Despair:! loss of hope
Persecuted:! arass, grieved, afflicted
h
because of difficulties we are going through
Forsaken:! abandoned
with, we are not overcome by them and we Cast down:!down cast, low in spirits
do not lose hope. We have grief and affliction Destroyed: ! o ruin, killed
t
but God has not abandoned us, we may feel
sad but this will not kill us. We have hope.
We have faith and God will never leave us. I
thank God for his patience and long
suffering towards me and my family and
towards all of us.

13. The Gift of Patience
I do not take lightly the precious gift that he gave me. I
consider his own suffering remembering always the
sacrifice that he made that I might live. God has given us
time and opportunity to come to him. He came to this earth
and as a man bore with such patience the hatred, envy and
disrespect of the people he had created. Our second greatest
example is Job who lost everything in a moment, all of his
wealth, all of his children, his health and his peace of mind.
He lost the respect of his friends and the honor of his
servants and event the honor of his wife. Yet he never
charged God foolishly. I began with a memory verse from
the book of James and I will conclude also from James.
James 5: 7-11.