◄ His Patience ►

Tribulation worketh patience" (Rom. 5:3).

The source of our Christian life is a Person, and the growth of that life in us is a gradual process - comparable to a grain of wheat, or a branch in the vine.

"A person whose ancestors for three or four generations have all been Christians, may inherit their virtues; but although affecting his life for good, they do not count before God as righteousness, for they are not the fruit of the directly imparted divine life. A believer may thus inherit patience, and although he may be but a babe in Christ, he is seen to be more stable than a more advanced believer, because whatever goes wrong he stands unruffled.

"To empty him, the Father puts him in circumstances where his natural patience' fails. After repeated failures of his natural virtue of patience, he realizes that it is not enough to meet all trials, and carry him triumphantly through them all. Then he turns to the Father to give him His own unfailing patience." -E.R.

"Spiritual growth is from stage to stage. There are great days, days of decisive battles, days of crisis in spiritual history, days of triumph in Christian service, days of the right hand of the Father upon us. But there are also idle days, days of apparent uselessness, when even prayer and service seem a burden. Are we, in any sense, renewed in these days? Yes, for any experience which makes us more aware of our need of the Father must contribute to spiritual progress, unless we deny the Lord who bought us." -W.G.S.

"It is not a man's thanksgiving that he has been set free from suffering; it is to be thanksgiving that he has been set free through suffering. Thou hast enlarged me when I was in distress' (Ps. 4:1)."

"For you surely know that what is genuine in your faith produces the patient mind that endures" (James 1:3, Wms.).