Take The Challenge – Longsuffering

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deborah chandler ministries, fruits of the Spirit, kindness, longsuffering, love, never give up, patience, take the challenge

Hi there,

So far we have covered three major fruits of the Spirit, Love, Joy and Peace.  Each of these fruits not only represents our hearts towards God but His heart towards us.  God loves us, joys over us and is at peace with us.  Being attached to the vine is being attached to His love, joy and peace.  He gives to us from Himself.  We in turn give to others what we receive from Him.  Therefore, the magnitude of our relationship with God is the magnitude of our relationship with other people or the more I receive His love, joy and peace , the more I’m able to give His love, joy and peace.

This week’s challenge is one that just might put a frown on your face because no one wants to suffer let alone suffer long.  But I encourage you to remember that fruits are produced in us by the Holy Spirit.  It’s not what we have to do it’s what we have to let flow through us.  So let’s look at longsuffering.

First, longsuffering doesn’t mean that you allow yourself to be a push over and let people walk all over you while you lay there and suffer.  No, that’s a person that’s insecure and lacking in confidence.  Neither does it mean that we suffer long with anything that the enemy does because we’ve been given victory over him through Christ.  The kind of longsuffering that the Holy Spirit produces in us comes out of love and love is power.   God was and is longsuffering with us because He loves us.   We in turn are longsuffering with other people because we know God’s love.    Whenever we’re ready to give up and cut people out of our lives it’s knowing the love of God that enables us to be longsuffering especially when people keep doing the same thing over and over again.  Paul in writing about love said, “love suffereth long and is kind…” (2 Cor. 13:4).  So we don’t suffer long with a bad attitude but with the heart of God which is love, joy and peace.

Maybe you’ve already come to the point where you’ve given up on someone and vowed never to deal with that person again.  Maybe it’s your son or daughter or husband or wife.  This week I challenge you to see how much God loves you.  How when you were a sinner Christ died for you and never gave up on you. How he suffers long with you because of His love for you and allow the Holy Spirit to flow through you that fruit of longsuffering.  The choice is yours.

Wait On The Lord

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life, natural, patience, spiritual, time, wait, waiting

Psalm 27:14

“Wait on the Lord; be of good courage, and He shall strengthen thine heart; wait, I say, on the Lord.”

Life is filled with waiting.  We wait nine months to be born, we wait in line at the grocery store, we wait for our food to cook, we wait two weeks to get paid, we wait, we wait, we wait.  But while we are waiting on these things we don’t give up.  We don’t say never mind I’m not pregnant, or throw the food away before it’s done.  No! we wait because we know that at the end of nine months a baby will be born and at the right time the food will be done.  How much more than should we wait on the Lord? Waiting is not for God, He exist outside of time and all things are present with Him.  Waiting is for man because God created time for man.   Whatever God says is done in the present with Him but we wait for it to be manifested in the natural realm.  Waiting doesn’t mean that it’s not done, it just means that it’s moving from the spiritual realm to the natural realm.

So while you are waiting for those things that God has promised you to manifest, rest in knowing that “God is not a man that He should lie; neither the son of man that He should repent; hath He said and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?” (Numbers 23:20). Don’t give up just because you have to wait, remember waiting is a part of this natural life.  Instead, bravely, declare His word over your life and He will strengthen your heart while you wait.

Keep Moving!

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consistency, consistent, patience, promises, race, run, steadfast

Hebrews 12:1

“Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin with doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us.”

Through tribulations, persecutions, test and trials patience is the key to seeing the promises of God manifest in your life.

Patience is not sitting around doing nothing patience is being consistent in doing what God has told you to do.  The scripture tells us to look to Jesus the author and finisher of our faith.  Here’s why, when we look at Jesus what we see is someone who knew the joys and the pains of doing the will of God yet He didn’t allow it to stop Him.  He was consistent in what He believed.  He believed that God would raise Him up and that He would be successful in accomplishing the will of God in reconciling man back to God.  He endured the cross and despised the shame to see the promises of God manifested.

Faith and patience work together.  Hebrews 6:12 says “That ye be not slothful, but followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises.  Not being slothful means that we don’t just sit around and fold our hands and do nothing but that we keep moving in the direction of what we believed.  And even though we may be faced with some challenges alone the way we don’t stop we keep moving.

God is faithful and true if He said it He will do it. Numbers 23:19 says, “God is not a man, that He should lie; neither the son of man, that He should repent; hath he said, and shall he not do it? Or hath he spoken, and shall He not make it good?  God swore to Abraham “saying, surely blessing I will bless thee, and multiplying I will multiple thee.  And so after he (Abraham) had patiently endured, he obtained the promise” (Hebrews 6:14-15).

Abraham didn’t give up even though there were times when he made the wrong choices he kept moving in what he believed and he saw the promised manifested in his life.  Keep moving, be consistent and you will see the promises of God manifest  in your life.