Patience – Walk In The Spirit…
Galatians 5:22-23 The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things, there is no law.
LOVE
Does human love fulfill and mend our hearts? Or is there a love beyond human love that is more fulfilling, a spiritual and unconditional love that underlies our lives? If so, how do we access it?
Love is the motivation behind many of our dreams, actions and thoughts. Yet we often have a lot of rules and ideas about love that stop us from feeling love for ourselves and others. One way to expand your capacity for real love in your life is to look at your inner rules honestly. See which ones work and see which ones place limits on your capacity to give or receive love.
Consider this: Look at the rules for what they really are: Attempts to make human love conform to the parameters of divine love. Our rules around love are well-intentioned, but they are usually stifling. Divine love has no bounds and conditions; human love is filled with bounds and conditions.
We want others to love us as we are, but we usually put so many conditions on what love is in the first place. We have to step out of the rules and move into spiritual love. Love, without any rules, conditions, limitations, or neediness, is spiritual love. Spiritual love is pure and unveiled. It is always present, regardless of whether or not we are in a relationship. It is in your own heart.
JOY
Find a place inside where there’s joy, and the joy will burn out the pain. When you are sad and feeling blue and really don’t know what to do, open God’s Word, and you can read Scriptures to give you the strength you need. The joy of the Lord is our strength. God’s joy can end depression’s length, so don’t mope around with a long, sad face if you have accepted God’s merciful grace.
There’s not a problem that God can not solve. We should resolve, in our hearts, to take our problems to Him in prayer, give Him the burden, and leave it there. I know it’s easier said than done, but was it easy when God gave His own Son to die for our sins on a cruel tree to give eternal life to you and me? If we can trust Him to save our souls, we can trust Him with problems that take their tolls and steal our joy that we need to display to others that we meet along life’s way. Joy is the serious business of heaven.
PEACE
Peace is not the absence of conflict from life but the ability to cope with it.
Perhaps the key to feeling real peace is being able to accept what is. Acceptance simply means recognizing your ego’s voice and rejecting it. Knowing that the only person we can change is ourselves enables us to do this.
As soon as we start to think there is something not right, not the way it should be, or we become judgmental about a situation or a person—their words or behavior—we know we have moved away from accepting what is, by wanting to control what is outside of us.
There is a lot of negative energy and craziness in this world, but we can all learn to live with inner peace.
If your intention is strong and comes from the deepest part of you, it will happen. Outwardly, nothing changes; peace comes from making changes inside you.
It begins and continues through becoming more aware of who you really are, knowing you are loved, making changes in the way you think, practicing loving-kindness, and accepting what is.
As serenity and unconditional love fill your heart, you will accept that you cannot go back, and will not relinquish what you have now found, that peace that you seem to have been searching for your whole life.
Finally, you will come to this—deep inner peace inside you that endures, regardless of what challenges life brings.
FORBEARANCE
The Spirit’s fruit of forbearance is much more patient. It is choosing not to retaliate when wronged. It’s extending terms to benefit another instead of demanding a justifiable immediate payment. Forbearance is the long suffering the Lord has towards sinners who need Him. He knows that time away from Him eventually loses its luster and appeal.
By faith, we are able to model God’s great patience towards those who anger us, who deeply disappoint us. The Holy Spirit fills us with the fruit of forbearance so He can lengthen the fuse of our temper. The longer it takes for our temper to smolder under self-control, the more time we have to cool down. The Spirit’s forbearance releases our vengeance to the Lord.
“Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, forbearance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repentance.” Romans 2:4
Do you thank the Lord for His kindness, forbearance, and patience toward your ignorant indiscretions and your intentionally unwise acts? Are you taking for granted God’s great grace? Eventually, His patience does run out on those who run away from Him. There comes a time when secret sins come to roost on God’s righteous roof. So, come clean and learn how to walk wisely in this season of forbearance from your heavenly Father.
Lastly, do not buckle in unbelief under the pressures that threaten to crush your spirit. Christ has given you a deep reservoir of forbearance to bear these burdens. There is not a drought of God’s grace during hot summers of suffering. Critics will come and go. And hard circumstances are meant to soften your heart to grow a harvest for Christ. The fruit of forbearance in your life waters seeds in other searching souls. Thus, be a faithful forbearer of faith!
KINDNESS – GOODNESS – FAiTHFULNESS
Kindness, Goodness, and Faithfulness pretty much speak for themselves. Yet, it does seem we have a weakness for forgetting kindness and goodness come with love for your fellow man. If we faithfully follow His command to put no other before Him and to love your neighbor as yourself, and as He has loved you, we would have no problem walking daily in the Spirit.
Walk daily with God at your side!
Love always,
Ed
Ed Christian's World 