Peace

Dear CBC Family,

“You have need of patience.” “Let patience have its perfect work, that you may be mature and complete."

These words of the Holy Spirit show us what an important fruit in the Christian life and character patience is. Without it we will never be mature or complete. We will always be unstable and lacking wisdom and strength. Patience is foundational to a life of power, a life that matters for eternity.

I believe the best place to cultivate patience is when we are waiting on God to bring something to pass in our lives. It is often in that environment that we discover how impatient we actually are. God is not dragging His feet, He is simply showing us what needs to be changed for our good. It’s hard to give up control but faith will suffer if we won’t.

If we are honest with ourselves we will find that our impatience has an object. That object is usually God that we are impatient with, because He does not do what we wish in the time frame we desire. The first time I realized that was the case, it bought some fear to my soul.

The Bible says “Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him.” It is resting in the Lord, in His will, His promises, His faithfulness, and His love, that makes patience easy. Resting in Him is nothing but being silent and still before Him. Having all of our anxious thoughts calmed in that great peace of God which passes all understanding. There is another verb here though which is “wait patiently”. We often think of waiting as sitting around being bored. That is not the idea here. This waiting is more like a waiter serving a customer in the restaurant.

As we are resting in the Lord to bring forth what He has promised we are to wait patiently by serving Him. We are to continue to do what we know He desires us to do while we trust for Him to come through when the timing is just right. The great promise of scripture is “those that wait on the Lord will renew their strength. They will mount up with wings as Eagles. They will run and not be weary.” While being impatient is exhausting, patience actually restores strength and power. That sounds like something each of us could use more of in our days of weakness and confusion

This weekend we are still in Romans 11. I pulled the sermon title “A Remnant of Grace” right from the text. Join us as we learn the see the amazing faithfulness of God to work His redemptive plan from beginning to end.

Blessings,

Pastor Scott