Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. - Romans 12: 12 (NIV)
Patient even when we are being afflicted! These are garments we must choose to put on if we are to represent Christ. They are the garments we are supposed to wear to live the Christian life we are called to.
Verse 13 deals with one of the end results of clothing ourselves properly - we must take it to action. We must be a forgiving people. You cannot clothe yourself with tenderhearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience and then somehow not be forgiving by nature! Not only are we called to be forgiving but we are to make allowance for the faults of others. We are to expect the faults of others not take offense at them. Other versions say we are supposed to bear with each other. Beloved - we are supposed to put up with one another. The Bible actually says we are to bear one another's burdens! Instead of saying "I'll pray for you"; we are actually supposed to stop our lives and pray for them. Faith without works is dead.
Unfortunately, we can be so easily offended in the church. Another of the grievous problems created from the seeker friendly theories of church growth is that it makes Christianity to be about me instead of it being about Christ. We start thinking the church should accommodate me. We start thinking that our purposed ministry somehow belongs to me. Then inevitably something does not go our way and we get hurt. We get offended. Invariably we then leave the church. Never mind that it teaches sound doctrine because we are more important than the God we claim to serve. We pack our bags and take our offended spirit to another church and proceed to bleed all over that one as well. Make allowances. Forgive any offense.
Why? Because of what Jesus Christ has forgiven us! So we come full circle again. The easiest way to not be clothed in tenderhearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience is to forget where Jesus Christ found you. Paul remembered that Jesus found him presiding over the deaths of Christians, including Stephen the first martyr. Many have speculated over what the thorn was in Paul's flesh that the enemy used to torment him. I have always felt it was the memories of who he was before Christ and the havoc he wreaked upon the church he now loved. The only way to survive that and overcome that is through His grace, which is always sufficient for us.
I remember the bar God found me in. I remember the mess I had made of my life and how God restored not only my soul but my life as well. But living this new life on a daily basis requires something of me. It requires a new wardrobe. It requires that I put off the things of my flesh and clothe myself in the the things of God. Easy? No beloved, it is not easy. But what does the Lord require should be the only question that matters now.
Reverend Anthony Wade - February 16, 2014
