Day 290- Patience is a Virtue
📖Daily Reading
Galatians 1-2
Join me on my morning walk as we rise and shine together by walking through the Bible daily and learn a practical applicable coaching nugget from the ultimate life coach - our creator (whatever that means to you). No judgement zone here, all are welcome, we are all on a spiritual journey because we are after all spiritual beings having a human experience.
📝 Reflection
Galatians 1:13-16
“You know what I was like when I followed the Jewish religion—how I violently persecuted God’s church. I did my best to destroy it. I was far ahead of my fellow Jews in my zeal for the traditions of my ancestors. But even before I was born, God chose me and called me by his marvelous grace. Then it pleased him to reveal his Son to me so that I would proclaim the Good News about Jesus to the Gentiles. When this happened, I did not rush out to consult with any human being.”
Paul is demonstrating his earnestness and integrity as a representative of God to deliver the good new of grace and love. Part of this was his patient endurance that allowed his own faith to mature through living it out. He didn’t rush his maturity, in fact he was very aware that he need to go through a growth process. He needed to own his own faith and become confident in himself as a messenger.
He did this by being very self aware and intentionally not rushing himself or putting himself in the ‘lion’s den’. This for him as Jew who has been freed from the law was to leave Jerusalem. It says that he went away for three years, then came back for fifteen days to visit with Peter and then left again for fourteen years. That took a tremendous amount of patience. But this time allowed him to grow in endurance, confidence and a certainty about the good news that he was able to confront head on with his people upon his return.
He came back to be encouraged that while he was away preaching to the gentiles that what he was doing was good and correct and not just a waste of time. He received this affirmation from the original apostles. While there he saw evidence that a false gospel had crept in to the church there. There were leaders who where trying to bring the law back into the church in Jerusalem.
In fact he even had to have a hard conversation with Peter. Peter was influenced by some of his friends who were also Jewish christians and he was getting criticized for eating with uncircumcised gentiles. As a leader this influenced others and they followed suit. So not only was Peter being hypocritical but he was causing others to be as well, even Barnabus. Paul was able to step in and speak truth with confidence, authority and strength to Peter directly about his hypocrisy.
A person is made ‘right’ by faith alone, not by obeying any laws. It is wrong for any believer to try to rebuild a system of law. The law condemns. When we try to keep the law we are automatically condemned by it and so are others. Pauls says he ‘died to the law, and stopped trying to meet its requirements, so that he might live for God’. This is the good news. We need to be careful not to fall for the temptation of the law. This is a very human temptation.
Paul practiced being a zealous orthodox rule keeping Jew who persecuted others his whole life, he had the patience and wisdom to know that he needed to remove himself from this environment as he learned to live in a new way. Even though we make a decision to die to our old ways, the new ways have to be walked and lived out. It takes time, patience and intelligence to become a new creation fully confident and sure that the new way has what it takes to not only survive but thrive coming into contact and a possible temptation to return to the old ways.
✍🏼Daily Journal Prompt
Had it not been for Paul’s patience and his return to Jerusalem at just the right time to help correct the hypocrisy that was taking place, would the good news have survived? Interesting to ponder. There is a reason patience was listed as one of the virtues that naturally is produced by God’s love and grace. Paul demonstrated his sincerity, he was the living word and a living message to me. I am thankful for his example and his courageous and loving leadership. How and where is God calling you to exercise more patience?
📖Tomorrows Reading
Galatians 3
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