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We encourage you to jot down what you hear God speaking to you about today as you listen to the teaching. Plan on diving deeper into the message by downloading the study guide on Sunday night so you can compare your notes with the guide as a path for deeper spiritual commitment. Once posted, the teaching video and study guide can be found under the Media tab.
By The Spirit … Patience
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. 24 Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. —Galatians 5:22-24
Paul’s purpose in writing Galatians 5 is to encourage his readers that those who “belong to Christ” (verse 24) are no longer slaves to their sin nature. That’s because when a person accepts Christ as Savior, they receive the power of the Holy Spirit to overcome their sin nature and develop the character of Christ.
The Meaning of Patience: The capacity, habit, or fact of being patient
It’s not the mountain yet to climb that will wear you out, it’s the pebble in your shoe.
If you aim at nothing, you will hit it every time.
Jesus and His disciples - Jesus was very patient with his disciples. They were sometimes thickheaded, lazy, selfish, and slow to believe. Even from a merely human standpoint, we can see how frustrating they must have been. Jesus’ refusal to complain about his irritating disciples can be described as an exercise of self-control.
His refusal to complain also involves humility, the conscious decision to lower Himself by not exercising his right, as the holy man He was, to judge and dismiss his friends because of their faults. We might even say this is a form of mercy.
Finally, Jesus’ refusal to complain about his disciples is generous. In spite of their vice and thick-headedness, he remained no less committed to them and served them increasingly as their failures became more outstanding.
Patience involves such things as self-control, humility, and generosity, all of which are themselves virtues.
Mark 6:30-44 … Jesus Feeds the Five Thousand
30 The apostles gathered around Jesus and reported to him all they had done and taught. 31 Then, because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, he said to them, “Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.”
32 So they went away by themselves in a boat to a solitary place. 33 But many who saw them leaving recognized them and ran on foot from all the towns and got there ahead of them. 34 When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So he began teaching them many things.
35 By this time it was late in the day, so his disciples came to him. “This is a remote place,” they said, “and it’s already very late. 36 Send the people away so that they can go to the surrounding countryside and villages and buy themselves something to eat.”
37 But he answered, “You give them something to eat.”
They said to him, “That would take more than half a year’s wages[e]! Are we to go and spend that much on bread and give it to them to eat?”
38 “How many loaves do you have?” he asked. “Go and see.”
When they found out, they said, “Five—and two fish.”
39 Then Jesus directed them to have all the people sit down in groups on the green grass. 40 So they sat down in groups of hundreds and fifties. 41 Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke the loaves. Then he gave them to his disciples to distribute to the people. He also divided the two fish among them all. 42 They all ate and were satisfied, 43 and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces of bread and fish. 44 The number of the men who had eaten was five thousand.
Breakdown of Jesus teaching patience to His disciples: Feeding 5000
Lesson One
God permits what He hates to accomplish in you what He loves
Joni Eareckson Tada
Lesson Two
Stop letting yesterday get in the way of today.
Lesson Three
Short-term thinking leads to long-term defeat
Found written on the wall in Mother Teresa’s home for children in Calcutta, India:
People are often unreasonable, irrational, and self-centered.
Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives.
Be kind anyway.
If you are successful, you will win some unfaithful friends and some genuine enemies.
Succeed anyway.
If you are honest and sincere, people may deceive you.
Be honest and sincere anyway.
What you spend years creating, others could destroy overnight.
Create anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness, some may be jealous.
Be happy anyway.
The good you do today will often be forgotten.
Do good anyway.
Give the best you have, and it will never be enough.
Give your best anyway.
In the final analysis, it is between you and God.
It was never between you and them anyway.
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