CHOOSING PATIENCE

colossians 3:12,13

Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering; bearing with one another, and forgiving one another, if anyone has a complaint against another; even as Christ forgave you, so you must also do.

So many things about this piece of scripture really touched me today. First, we are the elect of God, holy and beloved. We made a choice as believers to believe in Jesus as our personal savior. Now we are finding that we need to make a choice to put on all these things God has listed here for us. I am being reminded that like salvation this is a choice and we can choose to be obedient and follow these traits or we can choose to ignore this and put on our fleshly carnal traits. For me this has been a tough revelation. I have been struggling with my flesh a great deal lately. I have fallen into allowing myself to be controlled by my feelings rather than by my spirit. I have been saying for along time now,"my patience has run out." What an awful thing to say! The Holy Spirit has reminded me that I as a believer have the fruits of the Spirit inside of me which includes longsuffering, self-control, gentleness among others. As a believer I have Christ living on the inside of me and the Holy Spirit so the fruits of the Spirit are going to manifest in my life if I am following His leading. So by my saying I am out of patience or joy or peace is like saying Jesus is out of patience, joy and peace. He is the same yesterday, today and forever. He is and always will be. He is the great I AM! Jesus can never run out of patience so as long as I am walking with Him and He is my source I can never be without a source to refill my patience, joy, longsuffering, self-control. My being without is a choice and never His fault, He never changes, I just need to remeber where my source is and seek that first! I am so thankful for His grace and mercy and that I have a choice to follow Him everyday! So lets choose to put on these beautiful traits and wear them proudly for our Savior and live everyday to glorify Him!