Friday, May 24, 2013

Faith And Patience Get The Promise

"And we desire that each one of you show the same diligence to the full assurance of hope until the end, that you do not become sluggish, but imitate those who through faith and patience inherit the promises."
Hebrews 6:11, 12 (NKJV)

The Bible is filled with stories about people.  Some Bible stories are very uplifting and inspiring while others are given to us as warnings to help us avoid doing things the way other people did them and getting ourselves into trouble.  Romans 15:4 tells us that the things that were written before, in the Old Testament, were written for our learning.  In Hebrews 6 we get some specific instruction about the kind of people we need to pay attention to and imitate, the people who through faith and patience inherit the promises.

In our world today so much takes place very quickly, this is nice but it can be a problem when this expectation is placed on spiritual things.  We can get into trouble if we expect God to do something instantly every time, all the time.  In Hebrews 6 we are told that both faith and patience are involved in receiving from God.  In Hebrews 10:36 we are told that we need patience so that after we have done the will of God we can receive the promise.  Too many Christians expect instant results when they exercise their faith and then when something does not happen immediately they get discouraged and they usually give up.

Two of the greatest enemies Christians have to their faith are the clock and the calendar.  Our problem comes when we expect results in a specific period of time.  While God can do things instantaneously some things will take time; a good example of this is if we are exercising our faith for financial provision.  God is not going to drop a bag of money out of the sky to meet our needs, we will have to exercise faith and patience so that after we have done our part in the will of God we will obtain the promise.  Whatever it is you need from God, find Bible verses that deal with that situation, take a stand in faith and exercise patience; when you do this you will receive the promise!

1 comment:

Diane Ronzino said...

Jim, this is a great post - very uplifting and encouragine. Bless you!