Patience: Part 1 — A ‘Time With God’ Audio Devotion

This week we join John North to focus on the virtue of patience. It’s arguably one of the harder virtues to develop in our lives, but once mastered, benefits our relationship with The Lord and others greatly.

Finishing is better than starting.
    Patience is better than pride.

Ecclesiastes 7:8 (NLT)

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Transcript

Good morning.

I hope as you start your day you’re ready to start it with God. That’s the way we should start every day, of course, because our lives have been set in motion by God. He’s the one who designed us the way we are. We’re made in His image.

That image has been damaged by our own sinful choices, but God is in the business of reworking His image in our lives so that we live in a way that reflects and glorifies Him when we do that, that’s when our lives come together. That’s what we were made for.

And so if you want to experience wholeness and meaning in your life, you must learn to put God first in your life, not just as a priority, but first relationally. Spend time with Him every day. You’ll never be sorry that you do, and you’ll find your life being blessed and growing as a result.

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I want to talk to you this week on the topic of patience.

And as we do that, we just want to go each day into a different passage of scripture and see what the Lord has to teach us and what He has to say to us.

In Hebrews chapter 6 we learn a little about patience from Abraham as it talks about that great Old Testament character starting in verse 13.

It says, for when God made the promise to Abraham.

Well, what promise was he making to Abraham? It was the promise that Abraham would have a son with Sarah, his wife, and that through that son God would create a great nation and would bless that nation in an enormous way.

So it says, when God made the promise to Abraham, since he could swear by no one greater, he swore by himself, saying, I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply you.

And thus having patiently waited, Abraham obtained the promise.

We really don’t like patience, do we?

We don’t have time to be patient. We want things to happen now. If we’re expecting something, we can hardly stand to wait for it, even if it’s something bad, and our lives are so full of activity, constant activity, that the idea of being patient is really difficult for us.

Maybe that’s one of the reasons that God gives us so many examples in the Bible of godly patience and the reward that comes later.

You know, in the Bible, no matter how long God’s people had to wait, the end result of trusting God and waiting was always blessing.

And isn’t that what God said to Abraham? I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply you. Well God made that promise to Abraham at the age of 75. Sarah, his wife, was already way past childbearing age. She laughed when she heard the promise. But it was a promise from God, no laughing matter.

And yet it was 25 years before Isaac, that beautiful boy, was born, the fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham.

In your own life, is there something you’re going to have to wait for?

Something you wish God would do right now, and yet for some reason he’s not doing it yet.

Well, if you will wait and trust God – then the end result in your life will be blessing.

I’m John North.

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