Luke 8: 11- 15 11Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God. 12Those by the way side are they that hear; then cometh the devil, and taketh away the word out of their hearts, lest they should believe and be saved. 13They on the rock are they, which, when they hear, receive the word with joy; and these have no root, which for a while believe, and in time of temptation fall away. 14And that which fell among thorns are they, which, when they have heard, go forth, and are choked with cares and riches and pleasures of this life, and bring no fruit to perfection. 15But that on the good ground are they, which in an honest and good heart, having heard the word, keep it, and bring forth fruit with patience.
If the devil cannot tempt you with cares, he will try riches and pleasures. He has many tricks. If you fall for this, you will be distracted or pulled away by cares or pleasures of this life and not produce anything. You become a hamster on a wheel. Don't give so much of your life and energy to these things. The result is that you won't bring any fruit to perfection. The devil steals it from you.
You have to have patience to bear that good fruit. You have to wait. If you plant a seed you cannot make it grow any faster by yelling at it. It will germinate in its own time. You have to have patience. It's hard to endure. It's hard to have patience when you are going through the trials and tribulations of life. That's where you grow. That's where you develop that relationship with God. That's where you learn to trust God and you can say for yourself that in this situation, God saw you through. You will have stories of God's deliverance about yourself and you won't have to rely on tales of what God did for others. The only reason many people talk about great men of God and their deliverances is that they don't believe God big enough for their own testimonies. Many times it is just because they are impatient and will not wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.
Romans 8:25 But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it.
Many times we don't see how God is going to bring us deliverance. You don't have it in front of your face. That's hope. We hope for things we cannot see, but we have the promise of God that he will deliver, he will fulfill. He is our all sufficiency and that we have all the things we need. We don't see it, but we have the promise of God. We hope for what we don't see and wait for it with patience. God will come through. We have the promise so we have the hope and believe that it will come to pass.
Romans 12:12 Rejoicing in hope; patient in tribulation; continuing instant in prayer;
We rejoice in hope and are patient in tribulation. Tribulation is when things are not going good in your life. We endure tribulation, we are patient. We don't complain; we don't blame God and say he forgot us; we are patient in tribulation. "Continuing instant in prayer" is rendered in another translation as "at all times given to prayer." When you are in a tribulation period, one of the best things you can do is speak in tongues. When you get to the place where you are up against the wall and the wall is not moving, you have to go to the One who can move the wall for you. You cannot do it yourself. You do it patiently and you continue in prayer.
Romans 15:5 Now the God of patience and consolation grant you to be likeminded one toward another according to Christ Jesus:NIV Romans 15:5 May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you the same attitude of mind toward each other that Christ Jesus had,
If you need patience, maybe you ought to pray about it. God is not just a God of patience, but he is a God who gives patience. He gives strength and help in time of need.
1 Corinthians 15:4 Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,
Charity suffereth long means that charity is patient; it endures. When you are working with people, it is love that you have to have motivating you. If the love of God is there, it will patiently endure; it will suffer long. If someone doesn't get it right the first time, you are patient with him or her. Remember potty training your child? You encourage people because you love them; you see them through because you have the end in mind: "the end is better than the beginning."
You know what happens, though. The devil gets in there and he doesn't want you to see the end anymore. He wants you to take your eye off of that goal; take your eye off of those promises; take your eye off of the future. He wants to get you to look here and there and everywhere else when you ought to be looking at Jesus: the author and finisher of our salvation. If we are not looking that way, we will go off course. Then you get angry, you start blaming people-things aren't going right so it's somebody's fault. You might even blame God.
2 Corinthians 6:4 But in all things approving ourselves as the ministers of God, in much patience, in afflictions, in necessities, in distresses (Douay-Rheims Bible) But in all things let us exhibit ourselves as the ministers of God, in much patience, in tribulation, in necessities, in distresses,
As a minister, that stuff will come at you and you must be patient or it will drive you nuts. Another thing the adversary likes to do to people is to make them run around to put out fires. It's necessary to put out fires once in a while, but when you have an arson lighting the fires, the wiser thing to do is to catch the arson. You need to get to the root cause.
So we saw that God exhorts us to be patient in Psalms. We don't look at our neighbor or the evil people who are operating the wrong way and seem to be getting ahead in life because they will burn like chaff. We saw that the end is better than the beginning in Ecclesiastes. We don't get so concerned about what is going on " we keep our eye on the goal because the end is better. We don't want to be angry, we want to be patient. Lamentations told us we should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.
Then we looked at the parable of the sower. We saw that the sower brings forth fruit with much patience. Have patience with people and patience with yourself. Romans tells us to hope for things we cannot see and be patient for them. Romans also told us that we should be given at all times to prayer. It also told us that it is God that gives patience. If you need more wisdom, patience, or understanding; pray to God about it. Then we saw that love patiently endures. That love of God waits patiently. You can't function outside the love of God in this world and expect to be patient because you will just get burned out. In Corinthians we learned that just because people don't get it the first time or the tenth time ministers don't give up. The point is people show up and want to change. Finally, there is a great verse in Galatians 6 about patience and about being tempted to be angry or evil like we learned from Psalms.
Galatians 6:9 And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.
If you keep acting and blessing but not getting any results, the senses man gives up. The spiritual man knows God will give him good results in due season if we don't get talked out of it by the devil. We don't know what our due season is. We just know that if we keep doing what the Word says and we keep doing well, the bible promises that in due season we shall reap if we faint not. That means you must resist the devil and he'll flee. You don't know how long you have to resist. First you do the submitting, then you do the resisting. If you don't submit to God, you'll do nothing but get your tail kicked. It's a promise of God that you will reap in due season if you faint not.