Today we continue our series entitled, “Faith and Patience Volume IV — The Wonder Twins”. I have laid the foundation for faith. Now I am doing the same for patience. Let’s get into it.
(?James? ?1?:?2-4? KJV)
2 My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations;
3 Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience.
4 But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.
(James 1:2-4 TPT)
2 My fellow believers, when it seems as though you are facing nothing but difficulties see it as an invaluable opportunity to experience the greatest joy that you can!
3 For you know that when your faith is tested it stirs up power within you to endure all things.
4 And then as your endurance grows even stronger it will release perfection into every part of your being until there is nothing missing and nothing lacking.
(Galatians 6:9 NIV)
Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.
So what does this mean for you today? A few things.
1. You must be PROCESSED to be able to handle the PROMISE!
a) I have taught you before that you must be processed to be able to carry the weight of the anointing associated with your assignment. This point seems to be misunderstood by many believers. When God speaks something to them, by way of a promise or a revelation about their future, many expect what God said to happen immediately. But there is a difference between the calling, the separation/preparation, and the actual execution.
b) Joseph received his calling as a young man. God gave him a dream while he was just a teenager. He believed the dream. He had faith for it. But that does not mean he was ready. He had to processed and developed. He had to endure and mature. Before Joseph could become the Prime Minister of Egypt, he had to endure (this is where patience comes in), the PIT phase, POTIPHAR phase, and the PRISON phase of his life. If Joseph had not endured the PIT, POTIPHAR and PRISON phases of his life, he would not have been ready for the PALACE.
The day Joseph was called to stand before Pharaoh he sensed that his day had come. He did not want to look like what he had been through. Instead of going to stand before the king looking like the prisoner he was, he shaved and showered first. He knew something was about to happen. He sensed his harvest time had come!
He still had the dream alive in his heart. And after 13 long years of enduring, Joseph was promoted from PRISONER to PRIME MINISTER in one moment. That day he woke up in prison and he went to sleep in the palace. Why? Because he held on long enough to see what God said come to pass! He never gave up on God. He believed the dream would come to pass. People would think that Joseph was an OVERNIGHT success. Yes, God will make you an OVERNIGHT success, after years of patient endurance, and processing :-).
c) Prepared blessings come to prepared people. If you want what God said, you must be processed to be able to handle it. The processing period is not always pleasant, but please don’t give up while God is processing you for your assignment!
2. Maturity in Christ is not an overnight event.
Our text (James 1:2-4) teaches us that we can get to the point where we are perfect. This word means mature. At this point, the text teaches that we can endure all things and we will lack nothing. We all want to get this point, but it does not happen overnight. It requires patient endurance. I will attempt to explain a typical process with God, as we attempt to receive His promises.
Step 1: We discover something God planned to do in our lives before the world began. Don’t skip this step. Faith begins where the will of God is known!
Step 2: Since God’s promises are often bigger than what we feel worthy of, we have to open our hearts to the point where we can believe that God will do it through us. This step often requires meditating on God’s grace — His unearned and undeserved favor.
Step 3: Once we believe what God said and we can see ourselves doing it, we must build up our faith for it. This is where we either meditate on the scriptures that support it, or we simply meditate on what God said. We consider His Word, over and over again, until what God said it more real to us than what we see down here, in this world.
Step 4: Faith is an action word, so at this phase, we are to put our faith in action. Faith is something we SAY, something we DO, or a seed we SOW, solely based on what God revealed. We are performing actions in the present, based on what God revealed to us about our future. We must keep repeating this process — doing, saying, and sowing — as we wait for the manifestation of the promise.
Step 5: This is honestly the hardest part of me. In this phase, WE WAIT! God’s promises have a timing component. They will not manifest before their time. God told you WHAT, but He did not tell you WHEN! So you have to WAIT and you must keep on waiting until the fulness of time comes. This is why you need faith AND patience. This is why you require patient endurance in order to become mature in Christ. If you build up this patient endurance, the text says you can be PERFECT. What this means is that you will be MATURE in Christ. It takes real maturity to WAIT as long as it takes!
Believers make mistakes in all of these STEPS, to be honest. But the ones I see the most mistakes on are STEPS 1 and 5.
In STEP 1 you are supposed to DISCOVER what God planned for your life. Faith begins where the will of God is known. Faith is not about YOU trying to get God to put a YES on your plans. Faith is about God trying to get you to put a YES on His plans. Many believers mess up because they say that God did not give them what He said when HE NEVER SAID! Since God made plans for you before the world began, faith is about discovering those plans. Faith is NOT about you coming up with whatever you want and then asking God to give it to you. God is not in the business of fulfilling selfish desires.
In STEP 5 you are supposed to WAIT. This is also where people mess up because they don’t WAIT long enough. They give up before God’s timing for the promise. Galatians 6:9 says, “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.” The King James Version calls it a “due season.” There is a season when your harvest will come DUE. Please don’t give up before it comes. If you give up on God, you run the risk of missing out on what He promised. I don’t want to get to heaven, only to find out that I missed out on God’s best because I never developed Godly patience! This is why you need this patient endurance. And this is why I am teaching this series.
That’s enough for today.
Declaration of Faith:
Father, I want to be mature in You. I want to get to the point where I can endure all things. I know this power is only developed over time. I know my faith must be tested over and over again, and I must pass the tests. By faith, I declare that I will. I will endure, no matter how long it takes, and as my patient endurance grows stronger and stronger, Your grace will release divine perfection into every part of my being, to the point where I lack nothing! I declare this by faith. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
This is Today’s Word. Apply it and prosper!
