“In your patience possess ye your souls.” (Luke 21:19)
Patient in well doing, patient in our prayer life, in the answers to our questions concerning the truths of the Scriptures, in the pain, trials or tribulations to end.
Patient in waiting to go home.
When one knows the future, one can only be patient in waiting for it to arrive, it will not be hurried, and being impatient is not going to make it arrive any sooner.
We possess our souls by doing the inverse of impatience, of hurrying, and patience in and of itself requires self-will. How many mistakes, how many faults have occurred in your life because you were impatient, because you would not wait on the Lord, but decided to take matters into your own hands?
“Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth.” (Psalm 46:10)
You cannot rush to be still, you cannot hurry through life, filling up each and every moment and be still or learn patience.
One of our adversary’s greatest tools in our day is impatience, sixty or more frames in a single second of many of the videos you watch, constantly searching for the next important piece of information, never quiet, rarely still, always impatient. The constant noise of the eyes, as it is called, offers no peace, and people are being trained not only to be impatient, but to be anxious, especially about the future.
“For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears;” (2nd Tim. 4:3)
The verse implies not only the desire to hear only what we want to hear, but to hear continuously the newest piece of information, and every social media and television station is more than happy to oblige, as well as many who stand behind the pulpit. There are men of God who produce videos intended for the glory of God who will spend the first ten minutes or more on the things of this world in their fifteen-minute presentations before anything from the Scriptures is revealed.
We are no longer subscribed to them.
I believe the intent of their heart is true, but they have fallen into the same subtle trap, for they have learned that to start with Christ in their presentations means they will watch their viewer subscriptions plummet. The cares and woes of the world must come first, or those itchy ears cannot be scratched.
“And when his friends heard of it, they went out to lay hold on him: for they said, He is beside himself.” (Mark 3:21)
Even our Lord’s patience wore thin.
“Then Jesus answered and said, O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? how long shall I suffer you? bring him hither to me.” (Matt. 17:17)
If you can keep people impatient you can keep them diverted, and before they know it, they will have become addicted, they will have a nearly constant need for the “new.”
Learn the truth of inversion my friends. “If you do not have patience, you will not possess your soul.”
No, you will not lose your salvation, but your footing on the foundation of the truths of the Scriptures may become slippery. Impatience creates wants, wants unfulfilled can create unsubstantiated needs, and instead of resting in the promises, your search for the “new” may lead you astray. T
he world should be looked at, the wicked should be studied, but never joined to.
“Lest Satan should get an advantage of us: for we are not ignorant of his devices.” (2nd Cor. 2:11)
Your pursuit is to be Christ, this world has nothing of value to offer us, but the wise man keeps an eye on it, looking for the traps, warning others when necessary, rebuking those who would lead others into those traps, even when it is unintentional.
You cannot rush into patience, it is a learned trait, it is taught to those whose desire it is to seek the face of God for His glory by the Holy Spirit. And my friends, if He needs to, He will reveal everything in your life that could cause you to be impatient.
Following the world is not following Christ, they are rushing towards damnation, we follow in His footsteps, patiently, one step at a time.
