Tim Maas Retired Quality Assurance Specialist with the U.S. Army

If you are a Christian who has acknowledged God's sovereignty over your life, and who has faith (based on the assurances of Scripture (such as Romans 8:28), if not also on your own personal experience) that God desires your good, and causes all events that befall you through His permissive or directive will to work together to achieve it, then it provides you with patience -- other translations render the word as "steadfastness", "perseverance", or "endurance" -- in time of trials (which come to all of us in one form or another) to deal with those experiences without allowing them to separate you from God, even if the working out of a given situation does not conform to a timetable that you might have in mind, or directly result in an outcome that you might desire.

This, in turn, equips you to be "perfect" from the standpoint of your service to God, enabling Him to employ you in whatever manner and at whatever time will best accomplish His purposes and will, and allowing you to become progressively more like Christ, who came (as He said in Matthew 20:28 and Mark 10:45) not to be served, but to serve.

December 25 2015 • 0 responses • Vote Up • Share • Report