“Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, let us run with patience the race that is set before us. 2. Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of grace.”
In order to run the race of life, we need to get rid of the things that will weigh us down, but in order to run the best race we have to run with patience. What does this mean? First, it means that we should run with endurance. A foot racer has to be in good physical shape to run effectively. It is a reminder to us that we have to be in good spiritual shape in order to run effective Christian lives. We must run with faith in Jesus, remembering that He gives us His strength through the Holy Spirit. Of course our faith is strengthened through prayer and Bible study. We are saved by faith, and we are sustained by faith, with prayer and Bible study to strengthen that faith. Second, it means that if we are to run with endurance, we need to run wisely. In order to run the best race, we need to maintain our spiritual energy on a daily basis, and not let the devil rob us of the spiritual energy that we need to run effectively. We should not let Satan sidetrack us with things that do not matter, things that will take our eyes off of Jesus, and off of the life that He wants us to live. Third I want to share some things that can sidetrack us and rob us of spiritual energy: 1. I repeat: Satan wants us to keep from spending time in prayer and in the Bible. These are just two things that we cannot ignore…..period! 2. We get sidetracked by not loving people as we should. We just don’t need to let people “get under our skin.” You know what I mean. Grudges will stunt our Christian growth and keep us from living the best life. Grudges rob us of spiritual endurance. We need to forgive other people. This is not always easy, because some people hurt us badly, but, no matter, we need to forgive. 3. We get sidetracked by not being patient with ourselves. I don’t mean that we shouldn’t take sin seriously. What I mean is that when we have been forgiven, we should accept God’s forgiveness, and move on. It robs us of spiritual endurance when we continue to kick ourselves for sins that have been forgiven and cast out. Just as we forgive other people, we need to forgive ourselves. I find that this is more difficult than forgiving others, but we have to do this in order to maintain our spiritual stamina. I trust that you get the idea of what it means to “run with patience.” Consider your own “race” and run well. Bro. Joe
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“I waited patiently for the Lord; and He heard my cry. 2. He brought me up also out of a miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock and established my goings. 3. And He hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God: many shall see it and fear, and shall trust in the Lord.”
Waiting patiently has never been one of my virtues. I have always wanted what I wanted instantly. Patience is still not a virtue of mine, but life has convinced me that I can’t always have what I want now. I have also found that I really have no choice but to wait on the Lord. He just does not move on my timetable, nor does He move on yours. Being the impatient person that I am, I had to learn that it really is best to wait for the Lord and see Him do things in His own way - in His own time. Psalm 40:1-3 is a good example of what I mean. He hears us and takes us “out of a miry clay.” I know what it means to get “bogged down.” I grew up in Southwest Georgia where there is an abundance of red, gooey, clay that is easy to get “bogged down” in. When one gets bogged down, all he can do is to spin his tires. Spinning tires will not take us anywhere. When we get “bogged down” in life and start spinning our tires, it is good to talk to God and wait for Him to get us out of the bog. He has helped me stop “spinning my tires” many times. When the Lord takes us out of the ”miry clay,” He “sets (our} feet upon a rock and establishes (our) going.” It is the Lord who can ultimately put us on solid ground and get us going again. I see a lot of people living life in a bog. I want to take them by the hand and lead them to the Lord and let Him get them out of it. The only thing is that the person has to want the Lord’s help enough to ask for it and wait for it himself or herself. It is not something that someone else can do for you. If you need to get your life going, talk to God about it, wait for Him, and follow His leadership when He answers. The important thing to know is that the rock that He sets our feet on is the “Rock of Ages,” Jesus Christ. It is He who puts us on solid ground in our lives and helps our lives move forward. Give it a try: wait patiently for the Lord. What happens when we wait on the Lord? He brings newness into our lives. The psalmist recorded, “And He hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God.” A “new song” represents that which is new that happens in our lives. I have discovered that there is a “sameness” in life that we have to deal with. If we are not careful that “sameness” will get awfully boring. I have found that as I have served Jesus over the years, He has made sure that I did not get caught in the boredom of “sameness.” It has always seemed that when I have needed “a new song,” He has been willing a ready to put it in my mouth. When we wait on the Lord, we do not get bored and tired of life. The Lord awakens every nerve and takes us to that which is new and fulfilling. If I find myself getting bored with life, I just talk to God, wait on Him, and wait to sing – so to speak. That is when I find real joy in praising Him, and I think that you will find it the same. Verse 3 informs us that when we wait on the Lord, “many shall see it and fear, and shall trust in the Lord.” When the Lord does a work in our lives, He does not let us keep it to ourselves, but enables us to influence others. When we stop spinning our tires, get on the Rock, get a “new song” and praise the Lord, other people will notice. You say,“Yeah, but you’re a preacher, that’s what you are supposed to do.” My answer: “Yeah, but you are a Christian that is also what you are supposed to do.” Wait on the Lord in your life and see what He will do with it. You will find it worth the wait. Do it! You have nothing to lose but a weary way of life. Bro. Joe (I brought this one out of the archives from August 28, 2014. Presently the old Couch Potato has a bad case of writer's block. I hope that you will enjoy this article from the past. It encouraged me today and I hope it encourage you.)
“Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him; but I will maintain my own ways before Him.” I do not want to leave the impression that Job went through all that Satan put him through with no complaining at all. He was a good man, but, like all men, he was not perfect. But one thing is clear in the Book of Job, and that is that Job did not deny God, nor did He waver in his faith. If we put ourselves in Job’s place, we can’t even imagine how we would react. Of course, Job was not happy during his trial. He did not face it, always smiling, always positive, but he did face his trial in faith and trust in God. He teaches us to trust. What do I mean? Job trusted God in spite of personal loss. Think of all Job lost. He lost possessions. He lost all of his children. He had been proud of his children and was concerned that they live good lives. Now they were all dead. He lost the respect of his wife who told him to “curse God and die.” That was hardly a statement that showed that she supported Job in his predicament. What would be worse than losing the respect of the person with whom you had ten children and a seemingly happy home– until tragedy struck? Job lost the respect of his community. He had been a leader among the people, and the people had great respect for him and hung on his words. Now even the youth were making fun of him. Worst of all, Job’s three friends, Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar, lost respect for him because they thought that he had committed some great sin and was being punished by God. They were never told that Satan was doing all of the nasty work. But through it all, Job held on to his trust in God. Job 23:10 is a good example: “But (God) knows the way that I take: when He has tried me, I shall come forth as gold.” Job trusted God in spite of personal afflictions. Today we would say that Job had lost his health. I guess one of the most painful things that can happen to us is to lose our health. When we are afflicted we will react either positively or negatively. An old cliché reminds us that when we lose our health “we will become bitter or we will become better.” In the final analysis, Job became better. If we will put ourselves in Job’s place, thinking of all that he lost and of the pain and misery that he went through, we will say that we do not know exactly how we would react. Either one of the things that happened to Job would be traumatic, and that’s putting it mildly. We can’t put ourselves in Job’s place, but we can stay close to the Lord, pray and read His word, etc. in order to prepare ourselves to face the contingencies of life. Job trusted God in spite of the fact that God was silent. Throughout most of the book of Job, God did not intervene in Job’s difficulties. In fact, God never explained to Job what had occurred between He and Satan. Through it all, Job had to hear the false accusations of his great sins. God did not come to Job’s defense. He did in the end, and his friends had to pay for their cynical advice, but not until Job had come through the worst and had “come forth as pure gold.” We need to learn from Job that though God is silent, He is not absent. He has promised to go with us through all of the things that we encounter in life. He will not shout, but He will be present and He will do what we need for Him to do. Rejoice! Bro. Joe “Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor. 11. Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord. 12. Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer.”
It is difficult to decide what to write about in Romans 12:10-12. It is certainly important that we love one another with “brotherly affection.” (We could add “sisterly affection.”) We should certainly go out of our way to honor one another. Verse 11 gives advice that we all should follow, and is sorely missing in churches today: “Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord." Think of the revival that we would have in our churches if we adopted each of these things. I decided to write about verse 12, because I saw virtues there that we need if we are to live at peace with God, ourselves and others, and if we want to live in victory. This verse contains what I am calling “Three Indispensable Virtues.” We are encouraged to “rejoice in hope.” The Greek word translated “hope” here is not what we call hope. We use the word as a hunch that maybe something good will happen, or maybe we will make it through. The word as used here means that we have a solid hope in Christ, no matter what is going on around us. Our situation today certainly doesn’t look very hopeful for us. We see all kinds of moral values being devalued and paganism seems to be creeping into our country – if it is not already pagan. I remind you that this is the kind of society that Paul lived in. Rome was perhaps the most pagan of all cities. But Paul had the audacity to rejoice in hope and to tell us to do the same. Our hope is not in the world situation, nor is it in political victories; rather, our hope is in Jesus Christ – period. We who truly believe that Jesus came to earth, lived a perfect life, died on the cross to save us from sin, rose the third day, ascended to the Father, and has promised to return, have a hope that transcends the world. This knowledge should cause us to rejoice. I will not pretend to be happy with the direction of our country, but in this I rejoice: “I know whom I have believed, and I am persuaded (convinced) that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day.” (2 Timothy 1:12b) Hold to that hope and rejoice in it. We are encouraged to be “patient in tribulation.” In today’s vernacular, it would be “endure in all of your troubles.” It is easy to give up when things are not going well for us. (The Greek word translated “patience” here means more than just to wait in patience. It means to thrive in it, to live above what troubles we have.) We can get discouraged and just want to throw up our hands and quit. We might say, “What’s the use, nothing seems to be going right.” This can happen to us at home, at work, at church, or wherever we might be. When we are going through trouble, we need to remember two things: (1) No one’s life is trouble-free, and (2) It’s not all about me. No matter what your problems are today, if you will look around, you will see others with worse troubles. This is where "rejoicing in hope" comes in. You are not alone in your troubles, for the Holy Spirit is with you, and you have fellow Christians to encourage you. This brings us to a third thing that will help us "rejoice in hope" and be "patient in tribulation," and that is, “Be constant in prayer.” In 1 Thessalonians 5:17, Paul admonished us to “pray without ceasing.” In Luke 18:1b, we are encouraged to “always pray and not to faint.” “Faint” here means to lose heart. “Take it to the Lord in prayer” is always good advice. No matter what the “it” is that we take to the Lord in prayer, He has an answer for us, and will encourage us to go forward. We should pray constantly, even when we do not feel like praying, for the Lord is always ready to listen to us and give us encouragement and guidance. Think on these three virtues! Pray over them! Memorize them! Hold them close to your heart and live in victory. Bro. Joe “The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, to the person who seeks Him. 26. It is good to wait quietly for deliverance from the Lord. 27. It is good for a man to bear the yoke while he is still young.”
I want to share another encouraging text from the unlikely book of :Lamentations. The word from Lamentations this time is about waiting on the Lord. Waiting on the Lord can be difficult, for He does not work within our time frame, but He works within His own time frame. Jeremiah tells us that “the Lord is good to those who wait for Him.” What he means is, along with God being good to us, God is doing good things in our lives while we wait for Him. God’s Spirit is always active in our lives, and He ministers to us through all of the events of our lives and through all of the things that happen in our lives - the good and the bad. The important thing is that we will not realize God’s goodness for us while we wait, if in the process we do not seek Him, and seek His will and way for us. This is the time to seek the Lord, to draw from His wisdom while you wait for the next thing that He is going to do. I have discovered that seeking the Lord while I wait is not a painful process. In fact it is a wonderful process, for while we wait, we learn a lot about our Lord if we will just open our minds and hearts to Him. So, while you are waiting, trust in God, listen to Him, trust Him and know that He only wants the best for you, and that He wants you to see what is best for you as He does. Verse 27 offers the best advice for us while we are waiting: “It is good for a man (or woman) to bear the yoke while he is still young.” I don’t think that I will change the word of God if I shorten this a bit to say: “It is good for a man (or woman) to bear the yoke” whatever stage of life he or she is in. Bearing the yoke is a biblical way of saying that we are to serve God. Oxen are put in the yoke to work. While we are waiting on the Lord, we do not sit idly by and just meditate on what His master plan for us might be. He wants us to be active while we wait. He wants us to serve Him while we wait. Waiting on the Lord does not make us selfish. It does not just lead us to navel-gazing and wondering what’s next for us. While we are waiting, there are expectations that God wants us to fulfill. For example, there are people who need a word from God from us, whether it is a vocal witness or an encouraging word, or act. God wants us to reflect on His part in our lives and on His will in lives, but He does not just call us to quiet reflection. He calls us to reach out to a world in dire need of Him, and share with the world what we know of Him. Take the advice of Jesus: “Look on the fields, for they are white already to harvest.” (John 4:35b) There is so much more that could be shared from this verse, but I trust what I have shared will encourage and strengthen you as you meet the challenges of your life. Amen! Bro. Joe “A prudent (wise) person sees the evil, and hides himself; but the simple (foolish) pass on and are punished.” KJV “The prudent see danger and take refuge, but the simple keep going and suffer for it.” NIV
The teaching in this proverb is that a wise person knows when to stop when he, or she, sees danger. I thought of some ways that we can apply this lesson to our lives. When we face temptations to sin, we need to stop, pray, and ask Jesus to give us the wisdom and the moral strength to stop instead of going on to our hurt. A foolish person will plunge into sin without giving a thought to what the result might mean in his, or her, life. Once we give in to Satan, we do not have an “undo button” to erase bad decisions. We can thank God that Jesus will forgive us, but there will be scars. I heard Dr. R.G. Lee give an illustration of the effect of sin in our lives: He said that you can pull a nail out of a fence post, but there will be a blemish in the post where you pull it out. Perhaps the Lord has led you to this article to help you say “no” to temptation and not plunge into sin. We need to stop, think and pray when we are going through the inevitable trials of life. If we are not careful, we will give in to the temptation to blame God for the trial. If we are not careful, we will give in to self-pity. I can tell you from experience that “pity parties’ do not result in any good. Every moment that we spend giving in to self-pity is a wasted moment. I think of people who just go through life feeling sorry for themselves, making their own lives miserable, and making everybody around them miserable. A prudent, or wise, person will stop, think and pray and ask God to be with him, or her, through the trial. When we do that, we come out spiritually and mentally stronger than when we give in to life’s inevitable trials. We need to stop, think and pray when we are dealing with difficult people. After fifty-six years in Christian ministry, I know a little about dealing with difficult.people. I found that if I would stop and pray for them, I would not give in to an argument. I have learned at least four things in my experience with difficult people: (1) There are some people who are just difficult and you have to love and accept them as they are. (2)I have learned that God has brought difficult people into my life to teach me to be patient. (3)I have learned that some of these people are trying to teach me something about myself. (This is the most difficult one to take.) (4) I have learned to stop, think and pray when I might be the difficult person. (This is another hard one to take.) I guess I could list many more lessons that I have learned from this proverb, but the three that I have dealt with here will give us all something to work on for the rest of our lives. Bro. Joe “We are bound to thank God always for you, brothers, as it is meet, because that your faith grows exceedingly, and the charity (love) of everyone of you all each other abounds. 4. So that we ourselves glory in you in the churches of God for your patience and faith in all your persecutions and tribulations that you endure.”
When Paul expressed his thankfulness for the Thessalonian church, he listed three of their great qualities for which he was thankful – faith, love, and patience (perseverance). These are qualities that we should desire to have in these trying days. It is not as dangerous to be a Christian in our day as it was in the Paul’s day, but we still need these qualities if we are to live for Jesus and be effective witnesses for Him. Besides, who knows what we might face in the future? Paul was thankful for their faith. Faith is all-important in the life of a Christian. According to Ephesians 2:8, it is by God’s “grace through faith, that we are saved.” But faith is not something that we use to be saved and then go about our way, living as we wish. Faith becomes part and parcel with our lifestyles. We are saved by faith and we are sustained by faith. We face each day with faith in the Lord Jesus that He is going to enable us to face and endure whatever a day might bring. There are two other words in the New Testament that go along with faith – believe and trust. When we believe in Jesus as our Savior, He saves us and indwells us with the Holy Spirit. From that point on, we trust Him to help us in all of the events of our lives. I can’t say that I never have doubts, but I can say that it is a great comfort to know that I can trust that Jesus will help me meet whatever I have to meet with on any given day. Paul was thankful that their love for each other was increasing. The Greek word for love used here, is not the kind of love that we have for friends, or even for our loved ones. It is God’s kind of love, which is sacrificial and is active in our lives. The Greek word is agape. It is the kind of love mentioned in John 3:16 and in the great love chapter of 1 Corinthians 13. It is the word for love that Jesus used in John 11:35: “By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, by the love that you have for each other.” The church’s first witness to the world is the love that we have for each other. What is the world to think when they see us fussing and feuding, fussing over who is in control of our church? It was ultimately important that the Thessalonians love each other if they were to witness to their pagan world. It is no different for us. The world needs to see our love for each other increasing. Think of your own church. Think of your own attitude toward your fellow church members. Do you love them? Perhaps we all need to check our “love quotient” and determine whether or not our love is increasing. Our world is as much in need of Christ’s love as the world of Paul’s day. The only way the world will see that love is when they see it in us. Paul was thankful for their patience, or perseverance. The Greek word used for “patience” here means not just waiting patiently, but enduring while we wait. At this time, we do not have to endure the heavy persecution that the Thessalonians had to face, but we do have to face the daily annoyances and problems of life. Whatever it is that we have to face, we need to persevere in our faith and love. In other words, we should not let the problems of life cause us to throw up our hands and quit. Check these qualities in your life. Pray that you will grow in faith, increase in love and persevere in the trials of life. . Bro. Joe “But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary, and they shall walk and not faint.”
I need to confess from the outset that waiting is not exactly one of my virtues. There is a joke in our family that daddy or granddaddy always wants to beat the crowd. It is just something that I have to deal with. I will let you know however that I have learned the value of waiting on the Lord. Life itself has taught me that there is great value and great power in waiting on the Lord. One of the reasons that I have learned to wait patiently upon the Lord is because I have no choice. The Lord moves in His own time and with His own timing. He knows the exact time that things should happen, and He will make whatever it is happen when the timing is right. In John’s gospel, we are reminded several times that certain things didn’t happen with Jesus because “the time was not right.” Even the Son of God moved through life on the timing of the Father. You will do yourself a favor by remembering this. There is no point in getting impatient with God, because He will not move on your timing but on His. That is a good thing. Sometimes we might try to push ahead beyond God’s timing, but we find out that it would have been better to wait. Believe me, I know that by experience. Another reason that I have learned to wait patiently upon the Lord is because while I am waiting, He is at work preparing my mind and heart for what it is that He wants. I have found that when I rush into things, I make more errors than when I take my time and measure my actions. We need to remember this when we are replying to people who have criticized us for one thing or another. It takes patience to hold our words until we know what it is that we need to say that will do some good. I think that God’s timing is important to that as well. I know that I have said things while preaching that I did not think through, and the effect was negative. We need to remember this when we are waiting for something to happen at our churches. We know what needs to be done and we feel that God is in what we know, but all concerned will be better off if we just wait for God to do what He is going to do through us. When we rush ahead of God, we make foolish mistakes. Still another reason that I have learned to wait patiently for the Lord is that while I am waiting God is leading me to His purpose for my life at that particular time. This is what we call being in the center of God’s will. God saved us through Christ to use us for His purposes. He takes His time in helping us fulfill the purpose that He has for us. All of Jesus’ early disciples, as well as the Apostle Paul had to wait to follow God’s purpose for them. This is illustrated in Acts during Paul’s second missionary journey. He wanted to go into Bithynia but the Holy Spirit would not let him, because Paul was needed in Macedonia. (You can read about this in Acts 16.) There is a promise in this text that I want to share with you before we close this out: “But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run and not be weary; and they shall walk and not faint.” While we wait we are promised that God will renew our strength and give us the strength that we need to do His will. David mentioned this in Psalm 23:3a: “He restores my soul…” That is why there is power in waiting for the Lord. God’s power is at work where He is at work and our service is more powerful when we are at work where God is at work. Bro. Joe |
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