|
|
|
|
THE GLORY OF GOD SERIES
THE ATTRIBUTES OF LONGSUFFERING
After Moses asked, “Lord, show me Your
glory,” the Lord appeared to him in Exodus 34: 6 And the Lord passed before
him and proclaimed, ”The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious,
longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth.” We are considering all the components of the
glory of God. See Moses asked Lord God show him His glory. God did show him His
glory and God described the five parts of His glory, - mercy, gracious,
longsuffering, abounding in goodness and truth. We have seen three of them -
mercy, graciousness and goodness. Today we look at the fourth, which is the
word longsuffering.
The word longsuffering is from a Hebrew
word erakhap, which is a combination of two words, the word slow
and the word anger. So, what God is saying about His longsuffering is
that He is slow to anger. He is slow to exercise His wrath. So longsuffering
brings to mind tolerance. Long suffering speaks about tolerance. The bible says
that part of the glory of God is His tolerance. His tolerance to our
imperfection, His tolerance to our sins, His tolerance to our failings, His
tolerance to all the disobedience present in the world. God has tremendous
tolerance. We realize that God’s patience outlast us. God’s ability to put up
with us outlasts our ability to put up with others. So longsuffering is the
ability to tolerate, to remain the same in spite and despite of all that may
come. It is a tremendous ability because the opposite of longsuffering in the
dictionary would be possibly impatience. If we go by the Hebrew word erakhap,
slow to anger then the opposite of longsuffering is quick to anger. That’s the
actual Hebrew word – it is slow to anger. The opposite of that will be very
quick to anger and quick to react. Longsuffering is in the whole of the bible.
It starts from the time sin came into the world. Longsuffering in the New
Testament points to the sufferings of Christ and points to sufferings that He
prophesied that the righteous will go through.
We need to understand the concept of
suffering. We are not talking about suffering from sickness, diseases,
consequences of sins etc. We need to understand the suffering of Christ and the
sufferings of a Christian believer in Christ. There is such a thing as
Christian suffering. We believe in the Word of Faith message. We believe in
God’s ability and willingness to prosper His people. We believe in God’s divine
ability to heal His people and keep them in health. At the same time, we
realize that there is a Christian aspect of what we call Christian
suffering. As long as we are born again,
we need to understand the truth involved in longsuffering because it has
relevance to increasing the glory of God in our life. The amount of glory that
you taste is proportional to the amount of suffering you have endured. It is
important for us to understand that there is a relationship between the glory
of God and longsuffering. This kind of longsuffering does not include suffering
from the consequences of sin, sicknesses etc. Some Christians think that
suffering for the Lord means having sicknesses and diseases. There is no need
to suffer from sin and sicknesses since Jesus has redeemed us from them.
It is a different aspect altogether. In
order to understand Christian suffering and longsuffering, let us see what God
is tolerating here. What does God tolerate? The Bible does record God’s amazing
grace, longsuffering and great patience but there were a few times when God’s
wrath was also shown. We want to understand what provoked God so that we can
flow with God. If we want to understand God we need to understand His mercy,
His goodness, His graciousness, but we have to understand the other part of God
- His wrath. Jonathan Edwards in his early days of revival preached a sermon
called “Sinners In The Hands Of An Angry God.” If God is angry, you got no
covering. He preached under such an anointing on God’s anger and wrath that
many who heard the sermon literally clutched the pew for fear that they will
fall into hell somewhere between the beginning and the end of the sermon. To
preach that kind of message, you need an anointing. We need to understand what
makes God angry. We want to please God. In order to please God, we want to know
what makes His glad and what makes His sad and what makes Him angry.
There are several Hebrew words for sin.
The Greek has a word for sin called hamartia. Hamartia literally means
to fall short and it is an all inclusive term and word. It includes all the
various forms that are described in the Hebrew. Hamartia means sin. The
word hamartia is not a common word used in the Roman times where they
missed something. Just like we use the English word missed the mark, it
literally means to miss the mark. So, when the Roman archers are practicing
shooting at the target and the arrow missed the bull eye, the Roman soldier
will say, “Hamartia.” You missed it. That means to miss the mark; to
miss the standard that is what the Greek word says which is all-inclusive.
Now the Hebrew has several words for sin.
You may have notice on the positive side there are also many words for God’s
commandments. The bible uses the word commandment, statutes, ordinances,
and precepts. These are special words for the different aspects of God’s
commandments. All these things say something. Commandment has to do with His
moral code. Statutes and ordinances come from the same Hebrew word, which speaks
about religious ceremonies that He has ordained. Precepts talk about examples
or principles that may vary in its application from one situation to the other.
If you want to see the fullness of how
God’s Word is described, read Ps. 119. The whole Psalm is about the Word. The
psalmist uses so many descriptions about the Word. He calls the Word statute.
He calls the Word precepts. So, when the bible uses positive Hebrew words for
God’s commandments, it tells us something. Like for example, a moral code like
the Ten Commandments in the Old Testament is still applicable to the New
Testament. And at the same time, we have new ordinances like the ordinance of
the Holy Communion. That is a Christian ordinance. It would be a statute. Or
the ordinance of water baptism. Or the ordinance that is prescribed in James 5,
“If anyone is sick let the elders anoint him or her with oil” that is an
ordinance. An ordinance is a method that
God has prescribed. A commandment speaks about obedience to God’s prescribed
code of conduct. That is on the positive side.
On the negative side, the bible uses
different words for sin in the Old Testament. There is a word transgression
and there is a word iniquity. All these are special words that God uses.
So why does the bible use all these aspects and how do we relate to God’s
tolerance in our life? That is where we look at Scriptures and lets start first
in the Old Testament passage when God spoke to Abraham. Gen. 15:13 Then He
said to Abram: “Know certainly that your descendants will be strangers in a
land that is not theirs, and will serve them, and they will afflict them four
hundred years. And also the nation whom they serve I will judge; afterward they
shall come out with great possessions. Now as for you, you shall go to your fathers
in peace; you shall be buried at a good old age. But in the fourth generation
they shall return here, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.” When
God was speaking to Abraham, the Amorites were in existence. God was saying He
could tolerate them for another four hundred over years. That is longsuffering.
God say says, “I can tolerate them for another four hundred odd years until
they really turn bad. That is when I am going to send you all to judge them.”
The Israelites came out of the
Then in Gen. 18 God said something about
Sodom and Gomorrah. Verse 20 And the Lord said, “Because the outcry against
Lets look over to the book of Exodus at
some of the examples of the anger or rather the wrath of God. Exodus 32 that was before God showed His glory
to Moses. In verse 1 Now when the
people saw that Moses delayed coming down from the mountain, the people
gathered together to Aaron, and said to him, “Come, make us gods that shall go
before us, for as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of
Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.” And Aaron said to them, “Break
off the golden earrings which are in the ears of your wives, your sons, and
your daughters, and bring them to me.” So the people broke off the golden
earrings which were in their ears, and brought them to Aaron. And he received
the gold from their hand, and he fashioned it with an engraving too, and made a
molded calf. Meanwhile Moses was talking to God up in the mountain. In verse 7 while God was giving him all the
patterns and all these things. And the Lord said to Moses, “Go, get down!
For your people whom you brought out of the land of Egypt have corrupted
themselves. They have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded
them. They have made themselves a molded calf, and worshiped it and sacrificed
to it, and said, “This is your god, O
This event provoked God greatly. The
Israelites have seen God’s mighty judgments on the Egyptians for one year. They
have seen the workings of God more that the average person. They saw the ten
plagues in
So we realize that God is slow to anger.
But His reaction to different types of transgressions is different. Compare
this to the four hundred years of the Amorites’ transgression. God used a
different word - their iniquity is not yet complete. In our Christian experience
with sin, we realize there are different types of sin. Sometimes there is a sin
of commission. Sometimes there is a sin of omission. And sometimes there is a
sin of ignorance. There are many types of sins. The beautiful thing is that the
Hebrew language has specific words for each type of sin. God weighs different types of sin in
different context differently. We realize that sin is sin. But there is a
different degree of the sin of commission as it is of omission as it is in
ignorance. Now of all types of sin, the sin of ignorance is the easiest to be
excused and you got a longer grace period for repentance. But sins of
commission are only committed after you have knowledge. See after you have
knowledge on what is right and wrong, you have shifted from ignorance to the
possibility of committing the sin of commission. The sin of omission may to a
certain extend be due to ignorance. However, the other part of the sin of
omission is that despite knowing what is right or wrong, you were just plain
lazy to do what you ought to do. In the sin of ignorance, you completely did
not know the matter of the transgression. In the sin of omission, you may know
it but you did not try to avoid committing this sin. Or you did not do it
zealously. But the worse is the sin of commission.
Just want to look at some New Testament
passages to show the reaction of God in the different areas so that we can
understand our Papa God. In the book of Acts as Paul was preaching at the
Areopagus in chapter 17. Paul made this interesting statement. Remember he is
talking about the unknown god. This is the statement in verse 26 onwards. And He has made from one blood every
nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their
preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, so that they should
seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though
He is not far from each one of us, for in Him we live and move and have our
being as also some of your own poets have said, “For we are also His
offspring.” “Therefore, since we are the offspring of God we ought not to think
that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver of stone, something shaped by art
and man’s devising. Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked.
In other words, God saw all those terrible
things they were doing and God just overlooked their ignorance. That is
amazing; how can Paul say this? What is Paul trying to convey? See Paul is
trying to show that there are different degrees of sin. God considers their sin
in their context and level. Here it says God overlooked their ignorance. Then
Paul says, “but now commands all men everywhere to repent. Because He has
appointed a day that he would judge the world in righteousness.” Now that
the light of the gospel has come to them, God will deal with them differently.
Now the gospel is going forth and the time of the overlooking is ending.
The principle we want to bring forth is
God’s tolerance. Now there is a side principle to this. God will judge each one
according to the light they received. So in that measure God expects a
response. If a person’s response to the greater light he received is too slow
or none, his punishment would be greater than another person who received very
little light and his response is also slow in coming. To him that is given
much, much is expected. Man may say that is unfair. But God’s principles are
very, very fair. That is how He runs the universe.
Having seen that lets look at one more
scripture in the book of I John to show that there are degrees of sin. 1 John
5:16, If anyone sees his brother sinning a sin which does not lead to death,
he will ask, and He will give him life for those who commit sin not leading to
death. There is sin leading to death. I do not say that he should pray about that.
All unrighteousness is sin, and there is sin not leading to death. Now John
tells you the two categories of sin. There is a sin not to death and a sin unto
death. A person who has committed a sin to death has no more chance. But a
person committing a sin not onto death would still have a chance to experience
God’s mercy and forgiveness.
See the judgment is according to the light
we received. We have shown from the Word that this is the system of God and God
has His tolerance level. His tolerance level is determined by the gravity of
the situation and the responsibility and the capability of that person. In
other words, when God judge, He does not judge on some broad general
principles. His principles have been personalized and categorized into our
lives. He is a great personal God with great ability. Like those of you who
have many children in your family and you are bringing them up. You realize
that there are some principles that you do not compromise. There are some
principles that are standard procedures for family life. There are some rules
and regulations that you apply to all your children, whether they are 16 years
old, 5 years old, or 2 years old. There are some principles that you apply
commonly to all, like the Bible principle of honoring father and mother. You
would not let your children do something wrong. So there are some principles
that are equally applied to all. We are in a sense God’s children so there are
some principles that are applied to all equally and these are His commandments.
When God classifies some rules as commandments, they are applied equally to all
Christians, regardless of their Christian growth.
Now there are some principles again using
the illustration of our family. You have different children aged 5, 16 or maybe
2. Do you realize that some rules apply to the bigger ones that do not apply to
the smaller ones? Why, because the smaller ones do not understand. So to a
certain extend there are some firm rules for the older ones and some flexible
rules for the younger ones. You allow more room for a 2 year old or a 3 year
old to make a mistake than you do for one who is bigger. Why, because you are
evaluating them based on their capability. So there are other rules that are
categorized. Don’t just focus on the negative aspects of rules where the threat
of punishment looms greatly in the child’s mind. The child should also look
forward to obeying rules by giving them appropriate rewards. The reward for
obedience should also be bigger for the older child than for the younger child.
Now with bigger responsibilities come bigger privileges. God is proportional,
if He proportioned out an opportunity for us to be rewarded there is an
opportunity to be punished greatly. In a
spiritual sense, it’s the same. The more we receive the more responsible we are
to be.
Let me give an illustration. God seems to
overlook a lot of mistakes in the Israelites’ time. But Moses made one mistake.
The Israelites have been asking for water so many times. Here they were again
thirsty and they said to Moses to give them water. Moses was stirred up. He had
his stick with him. He had used that stick previously to strike the rock and
the water came out. That was the first time. Now here they are thirsty again and
they wanted water. Moses looked at them
and this time his anger was stirred. Remember he was the meekest man on the
earth until that time. He said, “Do you think I can bring water out of this
rock? He struck the rock and the water came out. He did not expect the water to
come out because God spoke to him to speak to the rock not hit. And Moses just
turned around and hit the rock. He disobeyed the instruction. God said to speak
to the rock and not hit the rock. Just because he missed God in that area, God said
to Moses that he was not allowed to go into the Promised Land. Moses kept
asking God to let him in until God had to tell him not to talk to Him about it.
In the end God said, “Alright, I will let you have a look at the Promised Land
but after that it is your funeral.” So, He took Moses up to
Lets look at Isa. 53:4 Surely He has
borne our grief and carried our sorrows. Yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten
by God and afflicted but He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised
for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His
stripes we are healed.
Now in these two verses, so many words are
brought forth in the Hebrew. You notice here what Jesus did for us. It says He
has borne our grief. He carried our sorrows. Yet we esteemed Him smitten of God
and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for
our iniquity. The chastisement of our peace was upon Him. Now lets focus on
these 4 words. Grief, sorrows, transgression and iniquities.
Transgression refers to a commandment and
implies a commandment. Transgression is quite similar to trespassing. You would
not know where you trespass if I did not give a signboard that says, “No
trespassing allowed.” But the moment I
draw the limit of the line and put a “No Trespassing” signboard and then you
still cross that boundary, that’s when you commit a transgression. So, a
transgression refers to a breaking of a revelation of His commandment and
instruction. It includes also ordinances and statues. When God has told you how
to do it and what not to do and what to do and you do not follow His
instructions, that’s a transgression. That is one of the things that really
provokes God.
Now when Moses hit that rock it was
considered a transgression. Why, because God told him what to do. He told Moses
to speak to the rock and not hit the rock. But he hit the rock, so it was a
transgression. No instruction no transgression. You cannot commit a
transgression if you didn’t have knowledge. So there is transgression that
Jesus took for us. He was wounded for our transgression.
The other three words are grief,
sorrows and iniquities. Iniquities point to all transgression, all
sins that are committed before you had knowledge. They are included in what
Paul mentioned in Acts 17 those things that God overlooked. He overlooked their
transgression not because they were not wrong but because these people had not
received the light yet. When Jonah preached repentance to the people of
Some people do not obey God because they
do not believe; they have unbelief in their hearts. Remember unbelief is not
non-belief. Unbelief is only possible after you were given the opportunity and
the revelation and you choose not to believe. Unbelief is a choice. Ignorance
is the result of condition. When Jonah did not obey God and tried to run away
from God, it was not because of unbelief. And many people try to use the story
of Jonah to apply to themselves. God tells them to do something and they give
the excuse that they do not have the faith level. They do not fully believe in
God and say, “I am like Jonah.” God is not going to send a whale because you
are different from Jonah.
The reason why Jonah did not obey was
because of his personal grudge against the Ninevites. God told him, “I am going
to destroy the Ninevites in forty days.” Jonah said, “Good,” and he ran off.
That was how he responded. Why? It is because the Ninevites were cruel. They
were the torturers and oppressors of
How do we know that? In the book of Jonah,
when God brought Jonah to
God has to teach him a lesson using the
big plant as a shade. I want you to listen to what God said in chapter 4:9 Then
God said to Jonah,” Is it right for you to be angry about the plant? And he
said, “It is right for me to be angry, even to death!” But the Lord said, “You have pity on the
plant for which you have not labored, nor made it grow, which came up in a
night and perished in a night. And should I not pity
They were in iniquity. Iniquity can be
equal to transgression. But the application is slightly different.
Transgression is knowing the instructions and violating them. Iniquity is when
you do not know the rules and you violated them. Iniquity is also wrong and you
will reap what you sow. Now when we say that this iniquity committed in
ignorance does not provoke the wrath of God as much as willful transgression,
it does not mean that you will not suffer the consequences of your wrongdoings,
even if done in ignorance. You reap what you sow. You reap what you sow whether
you believe in it or not; whether you are ignorant of it or not. You could walk
right up to a thirty-five storey building and say, “I am ignorant of gravity,”
and just walk out of the window. You may be ignorant of gravity but you will
still face the effect of gravity. Ignorance is no plea to be protected from the
effects of our wrong action.
We are talking in terms of God stepping
in, intervening or judging. That is the perspective. Notice what Jonah said in
chapter 4:1-2 But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he became angry. So
he prayed to the Lord, and said, “Ah, Lord, was not this what I said when I was
still in my country?
Do you notice he talked to God before
that? He said, “Lord, I know you are going to pardon them if they repent so I
am not going. I told you this would happen. You are full of longsuffering.” In
other words, Jonah was recognizing the fact that God’s tolerance and
longsuffering was greater than his.
Therefore I fled to Tarshish; for I know
that You are (notice that
all these words coming up that we have covered.) gracious and merciful God,
slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, One who relents from doing harm.
Jonah had the first hand perception of the
grace, the mercy, the goodness, the longsuffering of God. God’s longsuffering
made him angry. And God has to gently teach Jonah why He is longsuffering
through the plant. See Jonah is not a creator. He did not made the people. God
loves every human being whether they know Him or not. For God so loved the
world that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever should believe in Him
shall not perish but shall have everlasting life. Jesus said what shall it
profit a man if he were to gain the whole world and loses his own soul. See the
souls of men are precious to God. We cannot cover all the scriptures but a lot
of New Testament scriptures indicate that the reason Jesus’ coming is not yet
is because of the longsuffering of God. He is not willing that any should
perish. Longsuffering again is the word that comes forth.
So lets turn back to Isa. 53. We mentioned
that iniquity is in a sense of those who whatever area in their live do not
know their right hand from their left. That is the way God expresses it. So in
our present life as it is. As believers, because you are not perfected yet we
do not know some things yet. So those things that we do not know when we commit
an error in that area is considered iniquity, But those things that we know
that we commit an error it becomes a transgression. So these two classes of
shortcoming of sin are classified. He was wounded for our transgression. He was
bruised for our iniquity. Jesus has come to cover us with His blood in these
two areas. Is it not wonderful to know that the blood of Jesus can cleanse us
from the sin of commission and the sin of omission and the sin of ignorance?
Two other Hebrew words Isa. 53:4 Surely
He has borne our grief and carried our sorrows. The words grief and
sorrows are from special Hebrew words that were translated as infirmities
and sicknesses in Greek in Matt. 8:17 that it might be fulfilled
which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying, “He Himself took our
infirmities and bore our sicknesses.” There you have it infirmities and
sicknesses, which in the Old Testament were put as grief and
sorrows.
But the actual Hebrew word for the word grief
speaks about weaknesses and flaws. Now you see that conveys a totally different
perspective altogether from the word grief. You see weaknesses and flaws
speak about things that are not so much as an act but a state of being. For
example, a sin of commission is a wrong action. A sin of omission is a lack of
action. James mentioned, “What thou should have done thou doeth not.” But a
weakness, which is a special Greek word, does not refer to sickness. A few
times, it was used to refer to physical sickness but most of the time the Greek
word has been specially used to refer to flaws, whether they are flaws in your
soul character, flaws in your physical being, or flaws in your nature. The Lord
Jesus also takes these flaws upon Himself.
David said in the book of Psalms, “I was
conceived in iniquity.” He is talking about the nature of sin. See the word sin
means to fall short of a standard. For example, in the natural, car factories
produce cars. They will have a section for quality control. What does the
quality control section do? The quality control section will remove products
that are not up to the standard and that have flaws. Or maybe certain parts are
not functioning, as they should. See in the world of man’s creation, man cannot
really produce products that are exactly the same although generally speaking,
a particular brand or a particular model should have a certain standard. But
let me tell you every one is different. Every car is different although there
is a general standard. See every guitar is actually different. You could buy a
guitar of the same brand, the same make and the same model but professionals
will tell you that each guitar is unique.
Even though generally speaking there could be similarity among those of
the same model and same brand but each is unique. You can take two guitars of
the same brand, same model but when you play each of them they will sound
different. So there can be differences in products of the same brand and model.
There can also be flaws when the products come out in an assembly line.
When Adam and Eve fell and their spirit
man was cut off from God, there came the opportunity for flaws to come into the
soul of man. Even scientists who research into chromosome and genes of man will
tell you that there is a flaw in the genetic makeup of everyone. The flaws in
our genes may give rise to some physical problem. The sin nature is the flaw of
imperfection in man and gives rise to general weaknesses in us. Rom. 8:3
mentioned something in that area. For what the law could not do in that it
was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of
sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh.
A flawed nature, a flawed mind and a
flawed soul. Now the flaws in our life will result in flaws in our actions
logically speaking. So there is an area of sin, which is identified as sin
within our very makeup and our very being. It is called Original Sin and sin
nature within us. To a certain extend there is another area that God is
tolerant to. God is tolerant towards this sin nature in us and He supplies the
grace to overcome sin where we are not able. When the flaw will affect your
ability and where you have a disability whether of body or soul, God supplies
the grace. So that Paul using the same Greek word in II Cor. 12 says when I
am weak then am I strong. So, a general flaw that is there and here is
where God’s patience is great. See, in transgression and iniquity there is a
grace period for us to change before God starts dealing with us.
But flaws take time and grace. You not
only have to deal with it, you have to put something in. It is not just the
non-action. There has to be a very change and an impartation of a new nature
and life. Potentially, we have that change and new nature in Christ but
subjectively we are still growing into that. In Christ, you are perfect. But on
this earth, you are still not perfect. You are still growing onto perfection.
On one hand, Paul said in Colossians 1: 21-22 that Jesus has reconciled in
the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy, and blameless, and
above reproach in His sight. But in
the end of the book of Colossians 4: 12, Paul says that Epaphras … is always
laboring fervently for you in prayers, that you may stand perfect and complete
in all the will of God. You are made holy, blameless and above reproach in
Christ then but now he says that Epaphras has to pray to make you perfect and
complete. That is a part where God is also tolerant. And of all areas this is
the area where God’s longsuffering is very great.
Remember in our last message on the
goodness of God, we discussed how Abraham, a prophet missed God when he denied
that Sarah was his wife and Abimelech took her into his harem (Genesis 20). He
had a character flaw but because of his goodness of heart, God was able to
deliver Abraham and his wife from Abimelech. The Lord knows how to deliver
the godly out of temptations (2 Peter 2: 9). Ironically, Isaac also had the
same flaw when he denied that Rebekah was his wife and that she was her sister
(Genesis 26). We are not sure why “like father, like son,” that Isaac repeated
the same lie as did his father Abraham. It may have been in his upbringing or
something acceptable given the social circumstances that he was in. That is the
area where God has the greatest longsuffering and compassion.
Then of course the other area is
sicknesses, which talks about physical disability. We realize that our spirit
is willing but our flesh is weak. In other words, we could actually do more
things if we do not have a limitation of the body. It would be wonderful if we
do not have a body to limit us. I would like to do thousands of things in the
That is an area of a different type of transgression or a different type of shortcoming, which is classified under the second word there, sorrows. Breaking physical laws is in a sense a transgression too. If you break the natural law, you will have to pay the price. That is where the Hebrew sorrows is translated as sicknesses in the Greek or what you call physical disability in the physical realm.
Having seen the four areas of transgressions,
iniquity, flaws and sorrows, and God’s relationship to us we must
understand that God’s longsuffering is categorized. See when the Israelites
disobeyed the commandments He told Moses, “GET OUT. LEAVE ME ALONE.” You
see the anger of God. Do not ever touch God’s commandments by disobeying
them. I mean when God’s commandments are given as supreme, disobedience to them
would be the first thing that really makes Him angry. If you do not want to be
in the hand of an angry God, be obedient to His commandments.
The other category is the area
of iniquity. You commit iniquity when
you are ignorant or are in the dark. Then you got to pray a different prayer
for God to give you light. You have a greater degree of tolerance given because
you do not have the light. Like Paul says in Acts 17 God overlooked the Greeks
for ignorantly worshipping foreign gods. It does not mean He is not working in
your life. He is still working in your life. But His tolerance is greater.
Then the third area that
elicits greater tolerance from God, even greater than the second area of
ignorant iniquity, is our flaws. This is where God’s greatest compassion rises
up because He knows our shortcomings and flaws. Flaws do not go away easily. It
demands the greatest compassion.
And of course, the fourth
realm is our sicknesses and sorrows when we have transgressed physical law and
suffering the consequences or when we have inherited flawed genes that give
rise to sicknesses and diseases. In this physical realm, God grants the
ministry of healing, miracles and deliverance.
But they are all in different
degrees. As we apply God’s longsuffering to our personal lives, we realize
this. When you find it hard to tolerate another person, is it because of a
person’s flaw; is it because of a person’s action; or is it because of a
person’s disability?
We realize that many of our
ways are different from God’s ways. When God gets angry, His principles do not
go out of the window. But when man gets angry there is no more principle. See
God’s anger is based on principle that is why Moses can intercede and say,
“God, remember the covenant.” And God relented of His anger. See God’s anger is
still qualified by His principles.
If the glory of God includes
the quality of being slow to anger, we also must be longsuffering before the
glory of God comes. I tell you Jesus was very tolerant when He was on this
earth. He was amazingly tolerant. And we need to learn the example of Jesus.
And if anyone who wants to be in the ministry, whether full time or part time, one
of the requirements is tolerance. Why, because in the ministry and in the kingdom of God
So when we want to be like God
in longsuffering so that the glory of God can come on our life we must realize
that the next time you are irritated or angry don’t let your principles go out
of the window. Your actions have to be governed by principles.
Then we need to understand
these four aspects. If you cannot tolerate another person because of an action
he has done, your tolerance level is low. You are not longsuffering. You are
“shortsuffering.” You have a short fuse. Remember some actions are the results
of flaw. You could tell whether a transgression is a deliberate act of choice,
a violation done out of ignorance or a result of a character flaw.
Let me share my heart with you. The majority if not 99.9 percent of the shortcomings in the body of Christ is more in the third area of character flaws than in the first area of willful transgression or in the second area of ignorant iniquity. There is a greater measure in the second than in the first. But the greatest part is in the third. That is why we need to have a great level of tolerance and patience. It takes time for a person to grow and mature spiritually, emotionally and mentally. You do not expect a 2 year old to behave like an 18 year old. For growth to take place, time is a factor. Time is of the essence. So, we have to consider what it really means to be longsuffering. And if we are to be like God, we have to have such a tolerance level that we could easily fulfill what Paul says to bear the weaknesses of one another. Not only put up with it but to live with it. Not only live with it Paul went one more step he enjoy it. We need to reach that area of maturity and the moment you do, that is when the Spirit of glory will be great on your life.
|
HOME I INDEX I PRAYER
REQUESTS SITES I LINKS I CONTACT US I TOP |
|
|