Character Qualities of a Christian- Patience

            “Just be patient.” I cannot count the number of times that I have been told that phrase. Patience is one of the most difficult things for me, partly because it affects several things. When you don’t want to wait for God to work, you are impatient. When you get angry, you have “lost your patience”. When you are quick to give up or freak out, it is normally because you are impatient. Asking questions in the beginning of articles helps me better figure out how to grow in this area, so here goes. What is patience? What does the Bible say about patience? Why should we be patient? How can we as Christians improve in this area?

           

            The first question that I want to touch on is, “Why should we be patient?” This is important, because without answering this question adequately, the rest of the article has no purpose or direction. One reason why we should be patient is because everything is much sweeter when you have waited for it. If I ate at Pizza Hut and then went to Golden Corral right afterwards, the Golden Corral food wouldn’t taste as good as if I had not eaten anything for several hours before eating at Golden Corral. Another reason is because God commanded it (see Philippians 4:6). Later in this article, I will more or less attempt to answer this question a little bit better.

           

            What is patience? Well, I looked up the word “patience” in a thesaurus, and these are the words that I came up with: endurance, tolerance, persistence, fortitude, serenity, perseverance, stamina, forbearance, and a few others as well. That’s a long list to define, so that’s why those words are all summed up with one word: patience. Perseverance is working hard to finish a task; sticking with something. Endurance and stamina describe more of a level of how long a person can endure something (i.e. a race). Tolerance is when your four year-old brother is making weird noises with his face over and over and over again, and you just ignore it and don’t tell him to knock it off (although there is definitely a place for that). Persistence is asking over and over again for something until you get it. Now, obviously these words have multiple meanings, but those are just examples of what those words mean.

           

            What does the Bible say about patience? The answer is: a lot. In his second epistle to the church in Thessalonica, Paul says that he boasts about the church’s patience (2 Thessalonians 1:4). James says that the testing of our faith produces patience (James 1:3).  In Colossians, Paul tells the church to put on patience (Colossians 3:12). Patience is one of the fruits of the spirit (Galatians 5:22). There are so many other verses on patience in the Bible, but unfortunately I cannot mention them all. However, in this we see that patience is a virtue of many different aspects. Impatience leads to hurt relationships, short tempers, and missing some of the benefits of waiting for things.

           

            So how, as Christians, can we improve in this very important area of our lives? There is always a challenge in taking a command in scripture and practically applying it to our lives. It is not a skill that I have exactly developed, but this is my best attempt at it. I believe that patience and prayer go hand-in-hand, in the sense that without prayer, patience is impossible. Sure, without prayer, you may keep it together a little bit, but I desire a patience that lasts. Everyone tends to struggle with different aspects of patience, but no matter what type of patience you are struggling with, you cannot be patient in your own strength. So, my practical solution is to pray, and don’t beat yourself up when you lose it, but try to do better than you have done yesterday, which may sound cliché, but that is the very best way to work towards improving in this area of your life. If you mess up, pray and focus on improving. 

Character Qualities of a Christian- Purity

            Impurity or sexual immorality is an ENORMOUS problem that infests our society. Is it possible to remain pure in such a fallen world as this? What does purity look like? How can purity be achieved? What does the Bible say about purity? I am going to try to find answers to these four questions in this article, but first one concept must be understood. Purity is one of the most important qualities for a Christian to have, yet often it is the one that is the biggest problem. Before I get too deep into this article, take a quick look at 1 Thessalonians 4:3-8. This is about as direct of a command as you can have. Verse 8 says, “Therefore, he who rejects this does not reject man, but God…” So basically, sexual immorality is you trading God and your purity for earthly pleasure.

            

            The fourth question that I asked was “What does the Bible say about purity?” The actual word “purity” is only used seven times in the Bible (NKJV), but the word “pure” is used over one hundred times. First, look at 1 Timothy 4:12, which says, “Let no one despise your youth, but be an example to the believers in word, in conduct, in love, in spirit, in faith, [and] in purity.” Next, look at 1 Corinthians 6:18, which simply starts off, “Flee sexual immorality…” If 1 Thessalonians 4:3-8 wasn’t clear, this is. Turn a few pages later in 1 Corinthians to chapter ten, verse eight, which says, “Nor let us commit sexual immorality…” I think we have the answer to the question… RUN!

            

           The next question that I want to find an answer to is whether or not it is possible to remain pure in such a fallen world as this. Before I give my opinion on that, I want to first say that it is very difficult to remain pure with the amount of sexual sin there is in the world today, but it is possible. This doesn’t belittle struggles that women have with sexual sin, but it does tend to be harder for men than women. Struggling with what we see is a great struggle for men, and it’s mostly a matter of not following Matthew 5:28 and Job 31:1.

           

           Now, with Johnny Raincloud out of the way, I’m going to move on to the question of “What does purity look like?” Purity is normally a battle in relationships with members of the opposite sex. So, let me base my answer off of 1 Timothy 5:2 (see verse one for context). We are supposed to treat other women who are around our age as sisters and women that are several years older than us as mothers and for guys it’s the same thing but like brothers and fathers. Until you are married, treat the person that you’re dating or courting like a brother or sister. That sets a high but achievable standard for purity in our relationships and what we see.

            

           Finally, we get to the last question, “How can purity be achieved?” Maybe you’ve already “blown it” so to speak, but really you haven’t. Your battle for purity is an ongoing thing, and if you have “blown it”, your battle starts again now. You haven’t lost, you’ve maybe just been dormant. Perhaps you’ve been successful in your battle for purity, and if that’s the case, awesome, but you haven’t won, you’ll fight until you die. The answer to this question was more or less answered in the previous paragraph. We achieve it by following the standard that has been set in 1 Timothy 5:2.

            

           Before I end this article I want to include four “P’s” that have helped me a lot. The first “p” is purity, which is one of the many things that we should be striving for, but it is also possibly the hardest. The second “p” is promise. Make a commitment to give God your best, which includes a pure body. The third “p” is power. This one means that we cannot accomplish things in our own strength. We have to ask God for help with our problems, which ushers in the third “p”; prayer. Prayer is one of the most important, if not the most important, part of a Christian’s life. So remember those, and above all, pray for strength.

       Do not rebuke an older man, but exhort him as a father, younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, [and] younger women as sisters, with all purity… ~ 1 Timothy 5:2

       Let no one despise your youth, but be an example to the believers in word, in conduct, in love, in spirit, in faith, [and] in purity ~ 1 Timothy 4:12

Character Qualities of a Christian: Kindness

           What happened to kindness in today’s culture? Maybe a better question for today’s culture is, “What is kindness?” If we look to the Bible, we see God’s kindness defined in several ways. God’s love is everlasting (Isaiah 54:8), His kindness is merciful, meaning that we don’t deserve it (Psalm 117:2, 119:76, Titus 3:4), His kindness is great (Joel 2:13), God demonstrated His kindness by sending Jesus Christ (Ephesians 2:7), He also showed his kindness through his deliverance of Israel out of Egypt (1 Samuel 15:6), God’s power is marvelous (Psalm 31:21), and last but not least, God’s kindness is abundant (Nehemiah 9:17).

           

           Kindness is a difficult quality to have and keep, but it is attainable. No one’s kindness can be as perfect, as forgiving, and as abundant as God’s kindness. I looked up the difference between kindness and love, and the difference is that love tends to be a feeling, while kindness tends to be an action. So God’s love for us is his feelings toward us, and his kindness toward us is the miracles (small or large) that God does for us. To put this concept in a more concrete form, take the Exodus, for example. God loved his nation, the Israelites, so He was kind to them by delivering them out of Egypt. Kindness usually flows out of a heart full of love. If I am very angry at someone, I am not likely to go and clean their car for them or give them a present. Use this equation: Love + Action = Kindness.

            

           So all of this is like a jumbled dinner where none of the components seem to go together, but it is all headed toward a general point. You have God’s perfect kindness at the top, and our imperfect kindness on the bottom, and we have to climb the rope. We can never and will never (until we have our glorified bodies) reach the top. Everybody may be different places on the rope. You may be an overly kind person who enjoys showering people with gifts and words of encouragement or you could be an Ebenezer Scrooge before his change, but most of us are somewhere in between those two.

            

           Here comes the practical part. How do we climb the rope? Well, first of all, I think that as I work on climbing, I tend to slide back down a little bit. Many times, it feels like the “one step forward and two steps backward” feeling, where I’m not really gaining ground, but if you are praying for strength and going out of your way to be kind, you will find yourself steadily moving up the rope. I think the main aspect of kindness that I struggle with is letting people have their way and not forcing my opinion or idea on them. In order to improve in kindness, we need to be purposefully going out of our way to be kind to someone, and that can be anything from a gift to a word of encouragement. Let the other person have their way. Go out for lunch where they want to. In Matthew 5, Jesus says to love your enemies, and as I previously mentioned, kindness flows out of love. In order to show kindness to someone, you almost always have to start by loving them.

            

           So after throwing all of that at you and calling it “practical”, I just want to throw out another question, “Why should we be kind to anyone?” It is certainly a valid question, and the answer is simple, “God changed us by pouring out undeserved kindness on us.”¹ That’s it; God modeled kindness to us so that we would be able to show kindness to others. If we think about what God did for us, I think we can find a way to be kind to others, no matter what. God’s kindness to us should inspire us to climb the rope.

            

           Before wrapping up this article, I should go back and attempt to answer the question that I asked to start the article. The question was, “What happened to kindness in today’s culture?” Kindness has not disappeared, but the amount of it in the world has lessened. I think that part of the reason for its lessening can be credited to the fact that climbing the rope, as I call it, is a grueling process, and many don’t want to work for the prize at the end. So the question is, are you going to strive to climb the rope as I am. I mess up a lot, and so will you, but most of us have nowhere to go but up. Climb the rope.

¹ J.D. Greear, Gospel: Recovering the Power That Made Christianity Revolutionary (2011), pg. 115