Be patient with others faults; they may have to be patient with yours. Make your words sweet for you may have to eat them
When I look back, and I want you guys too, I’m sure you can remember how many silly things you have said and done in our lives. I am amazed at the patience that our Heavenly Father has for us. It truly is magnificent. We should learn from this and be patient with one another. We need to treat each other as if we were all wearing a badge or sticker which says “PBPWMGINFWMY” on it. These letters stand for “Please be patient with me, God is not finished with me yet!”
If God is patient and long suffering to us, why are we not more patient and long suffering towards others? I know I have trouble with this and I have questioned why I am not more patient and long suffering towards others. It may be hard because it isn’t a natural thing to learn but with practise it can be developed in our minds. When God revealed his goodness to Moses “the lord passed before him, and proclaimed, The Lord, The Lord God, merciful and gracious, long suffering and abundant in goodness and truth.”
When the lord was angry with Israel, Moses took that opportunity to remind his Heavenly Father what He had told him. “The Lord is long suffering and of great mercy, forgiving iniquity and transgression.”
Paul tells us that the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.”
Are you short tempered towards each other? Do you snap at those you love and often find yourselves acting in unkind ways and saying mean things just because you have lost your temper? I know I have done this and many of my friends who play handball would also know and experience this.
True love does not do these things. “Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; loves does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things and endure all things.”
Today people hurt each other for minor mistakes and infractions in traffic. All of us have been guilty of being hot tempered and inpatient at some point in time in our lives and not just in driving. It may be in sport whenever a team mate mucks up, it may be at school when your classmate who your doing a presentation with mucks up, it may be that people don’t know the rules of a game or sport and you get frustrated at them. I think you know what I’m trying to get at.
Some of us may have more patience than we like to share or spend. Unshared and unspent patience will do us just as much good as money in the bank when Jesus calls us. Use it now!! Share it now!!! Spend it now!!! We want God to be patient with us. “Therefore be patient, now until the coming of the Jesus. Establish your hearts for the coming of the Lord is at hand. Do not grumble against one another, lest you be condemned. Behold, the Judge is standing at the door!”
So if you didn’t take anything out of that I want you guys to remember and imagine you and others have a badge on at all time saying PBPWMGINFWMY. Please be patient with me, God is not finished with me yet!!!