LET PATIENCE HAVE HER PERFECT WORK
(mr 04/02/18)
OLUBI JOHNSON
James 1:4 AMP: But let endurance and steadfastness and patience have full play and do a thorough work, so that you may be [people] perfectly and fully developed [with no defects], lacking in nothing.
Hebrews 6:12 KJV: That ye be not slothful, but followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises.
Hebrews 10:35-37 KJV: Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompence of reward. (36) For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise. (37) For yet a little while, and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry.
The scriptures quoted above show us the absolute necessity of developing and exercising patience for God’s work in our lives to be brought to completion and perfection and for us to inherit ALL the promises of God: especially the promise of His coming in us in the perfection and fulness of Christ.
What then is patience?
Patience is CONSISTENCY: CONSTANTLY ACTING ON AND PRACTICING GOD’S WORD.
Consistency in hearing, reading, speaking and meditating God’s Word.
Consistency in praying in the Spirit: in tongues (1 Cor. 14.2, Jude 1.20) and travail (Rom.8.26, Eph. 6.18).
Consistency in ‘seeing Him that is invisible’ in your heart by revelation through the Word and prayer as aforementioned.
Consistency in thanking God in faith for yet unseen spiritual realities like Abraham did when he was believing God for the apparently impossible birth of Isaac, when he was 100 years old and Sarah was 90 years old:
Romans 4:17-21 NIV: As it is written: “I have made you a father of many nations.” He is our father in the sight of God, in whom he believed—the God who gives life to the dead and calls into being things that were not. (18) Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” (19) Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead—since he was about a hundred years old—and that Sarah’s womb was also dead. (20) Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, (21) being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised.
How then do we develop and ultimately allow patience to have her perfect work in us?
This is done by the CONSISTENT PRACTICE of God’s Word to break our pride: by repenting when we fail and fall and getting up again so causing us to learn to TRUST IN GOD’S MERCY AND GRACE to enable us to do God’s Word and not our human effort alone.
Proverbs 24:16 KJV: For a just man falleth seven times, and riseth up again: but the wicked shall fall into mischief.
Matthew 21:44 KJV: And whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken: but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder.
Leviticus 26:19 KJV: I will break the pride of your power; I will make your heavens like iron and your earth like bronze
The ‘stone’ here refers to the revelation of the Lord Jesus and HOW He walked with God.
Hebrews 5:7-8 KJV: Who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared; (8) Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered;
1John 2:6 KJV: He who says he abides in Him ought himself also to walk just as He walked.
As we PRACTICE walking as He walked, we will initially fall and fail because of the sin-nature in our souls (will, minds and emotions) and bodies, this will break our pride and cause us to learn to trust in God’s mercy and grace to do God’s Word, making us meek and lowly in heart fulfilling
Matthew 11:28-30 KJV: Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. (29) Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. (30) For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
