How To Develop Patience by Rev. Christie Bature: MP3 Download & Sermon Notes

1 Timothy 4:7-8

Don't have anything to do with godless myths. Rather, train yourself to live a godly life. Training the body helps a little, but godly living helps in every way. Living a godly life is a product of training. Whatever it is you want to win at, you train. Godly living does not happen by chance. Today the training we are zeroing in on is patience. How to develop patience, how to cultivate patience.

The Power of Words

2 Kings 13:14-19

Elisha became fatally ill. King Jehoash of Israel visited him, wept over him, and said, "My father, my father, the chariots of Israel and its horsemen." Elisha told him to take a bow and arrows, laid his hands on the king's hands, and told him to shoot toward the east, declaring it the arrow of the Lord's victory over Aram. Then Elisha told the king to strike the ground with the arrows. The king struck the ground three times and stopped. The man of God became angry with him, because he should have struck it five or six times to completely defeat the Arameans, but now he would defeat them only three times.

Some of us confess the word of God once or twice, and when it does not seem to work, we stop. Don't do that. Confessing the word is a training. Speaking the word is a training. All creation proceeds through the word of God. Until we give voice to God's word, it does not come alive for us. We live in a voice-activated world, and the manifestation of a vision or dream is in the mouth.

There is expressive language and receptive language. We receive what God has spoken over us, and expressive language activates it. As a king and priest, a believer has a direct line to God and is anointed to make decrees. A decree is a formal, authoritative order, and once made, it stands. Make decrees continuously, not just once or twice like the king who stopped striking the ground too soon. Let no corrupt word come out of your mouth alongside those decrees, for corrupt communication cancels out what you are decreeing.

How to Develop Patience

Proverbs 16:32

It is better to be patient than powerful. Nowhere in the Bible are we promised instant patience, though we are promised that God answers prayer instantly. Patience is a quality of character, and character is built over a lifetime of walking with God through good times and bad. One Bible teacher describes patience simply as faith taking its time. Without faith, it is impossible to develop patience, so we must chase after building our faith.

How God Develops Patience in Us

1. Interruptions

   Interruptions come when we are trying to finish something and someone or something disrupts us. A composer writing a lullaby once faced interruption after interruption while composing the piece meant to help babies fall asleep, and it took him seven years to finish. If you pray for patience and interruptions begin, that is the training at work. How we react to interruption is one of the ways God teaches us patience.

2. Delays

   We hate to wait. We have a microwave mindset, wanting everything in seconds, like the man who prayed, "Lord, give me patience, and I want it right now," which is really the cancellation of the prayer. God brings delays to teach us patience.

3. Irritations

   People and circumstances irritate us daily, from long lines to traffic to the small frustrations of ordinary life. Ninety percent of heart attack sufferers have a hurried, type A personality. Impatience is not merely a minor irritation; it is doing damage to the heart.

   Proverbs 19:2

   A person in a hurry makes mistakes. Haste makes waste.

We speak of the patience of Job, who said he would wait all the days of his hard labor until his change came. Wait is the operative word. That irritation, that inability to wait, should be brought to God in prayer rather than dismissed as too small for Him to handle. If it disturbs His child, it is not too small for God to get involved in.

Proverbs 14:29

Whoever is patient has great understanding, but one who is quick-tempered displays folly. If you are not patient, you do not have understanding, and if you do not have understanding, you do not have wisdom. Patience begins by changing the way we view something. Impatience narrows our perspective until all we see is ourselves, our needs, our goals and our schedule. The root of impatience is selfishness.