The Lord
does not hasten to punish us, instead He patiently presents us with many
opportunities to retrace our evil steps. Our long-suffering Lord is the one who
has unlimited patience with His creation (that's us, just in case you were
wondering). He’s the one who puts up with us and gives us ample time to use the
energy, movements, and powers that He has given us to be used according to His
master plan and will. Therefore, He grants us patience and time, again and
again.
Our
long-suffering Lord wants us to take on His long-suffering nature and to
"...walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called, with all
lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love.
Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace." (Ephesians
4:1-3).
Let's use
the children of Israel as an example of how the Lord is slow to anger: He
wanted the children of Israel to be a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation
(Exodus 19:6), but what He got was a murmuring and complaining group of people
- even after they had seen His miracles and wonders. Despite all they had seen, they got off
track. Regardless, every time they cried out to Him, our long-suffering Lord
delivered them.
The Lord
suffers long with us because he does not want any of His creations to be lost.
In Ezekiel 33:11, the Word tells us that He has no pleasure in the death of the
wicked. Our Lord is not some mean God that sits on the throne just waiting to
beat us over the head when we do some thing wrong. Instead, our longsuffering
Lord takes exquisite pleasure in waiting for us to gain the victory in the
fight and to struggle against the temptations that come into our lives (using
all of those tools He's already provided us with, of course). What an awesome
long-suffering Lord!
Our
long-suffering Lord is forever giving patient consideration to our weakness and
underdevelopment, because He knows our weaknesses can be brought to greatness
if we would simply surrender and willingly be obedient to the merciful and
gracious, slow to anger, long-suffering Lord. If we would just do that, we can
also achieve mature moral development, because the Lord is long-suffering and
patiently waiting on us.
With all
that said, let the church say amen... and AMEN!
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