Acceptable Faith

Heb 11:4  By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts: and by it he being dead yet speaketh.

Gen 4:3  And in process of time it came to pass, that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the LORD.
Gen 4:4  And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. And the LORD had respect unto Abel and to his offering:
Gen 4:5  But unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect. And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell.
Gen 4:6  And the LORD said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth? and why is thy countenance fallen?
Gen 4:7  If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.
Gen 4:8  And Cain talked with Abel his brother: and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him.
Gen 4:9  And the LORD said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not: Am I my brother's keeper?
Gen 4:10  And he said, What hast thou done? the voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground.

By FAITH Able offered God a more excellent sacrifice.
By FAITH.

Cain did NOT have the faith He needed. Cain did not believe and hope in GOD the way Abel did.
Why not? Cain spoke with God- isn't that proof enough of God and His love? Think about it, imagine yourself able to speak to God and hear His voice in reply. You'd think that'd be more than enough to give you all the faith you need, but Cain did not have the faith that Abel had.

God respected the offering Abel made because it was offered in FAITH.

Cain was upset because God did not respect his offering.

God told Cain that if he did well that he would be accepted, and if he didn't that sin would be right there ready for him. That doing well was FAITH, right? Because it was by FAITH that Abel's offering was more excellent than Cain's. Abel realized His need of God, His need of a Savior, Abel recognized God as His Creator and Redeemer. Abel BELIEVED in God in a way that Cain did not, not that He existed but His authority, His love, His ability to save, to bridge that separation that had been created by sin, that is was even necessary.

You know it's true that one person can have more faith in someone than another person. It's often the story that a wife will have faith in her husband even when her family has no faith in him. A parent will have faith in one child but maybe not so much in another, these are unfortunate facts.  Then again, some people are more trustworthy than others and more deserving of faith than others.  God is ALWAYS trustworthy, ALWAYS all deserving of our faith. When people do NOT have faith in God they are saying that God is undeserving, unworthy, in fact not truly God all loving at all.  Cain did not have FAITH as Abel had FAITH. Abel believed, Cain did not believe.

God told Cain if he did well-he would be accepted.

If Cain had faith - he would be accepted.

Cain believed that while he was supposed to give offerings to God they didn't have to be real sacrificial offerings. Cain didn't believe that HIS sins warranted any real atonement. Cain did not have the faith he needed, the belief in God and God's plan.  It was God's plan that man's sin needed to be recognized and a sacrifice needed to be made for that sin.  It was God's plan that in time a Messiah would come who would be the ultimate Sacrifice and it would be to that Messiah we would all turn to.  Until that Messiah came there would be a system set up for mankind to make sacrifices pointing towards that Ultimate Sacrifice.  The FAITH needed to comprehend that God is GOD, and our SIN separates us from Him is what we ALL NEED.

Cain didn't have that faith, not fully. Cain could have that faith, he could do what was required by FAITH, but he didn't. Cain chose NOT to have that faith, that belief in God.

We are faced with the SAME choice as Cain and Abel.  Real faith or no real faith, and it is only by a REAL FAITH that we will be accepted by GOD. Our sacrifices that we are called to make are different but no less real.

Psa_51:17  The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.

Rom 12:1  I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service

Mar 12:33  And to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the soul, and with all the strength, and to love his neighbour as himself, is more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.

1Pe 2:5  Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.


 Acceptable to God.
Abel's offering was acceptable to God.
Cain's offering was not acceptable to God.
We must be acceptable to God and we are, through FAITH, through BELIEF, through HOPE, all through our SAVIOR!

All by HIS GRACE, HIS AMAZING LOVE!

Please Lord help us, make us acceptable to YOU- through YOU.

In Your LOVE.

Faith- the Word of God Framed the Worlds

Faith.

From the beginning after sin entered the world and separated us from God FAITH became necessary for ALL mankind.  A belief in something HOPED FOR, and that HOPE is the EVIDENCE of THINGS NOT SEEN.

We weren't to be allowed to see God. We gave that up! We abandoned that! We lost that right, that privilege.  We separated ourselves from our God, from our Creator, our Maker, our Leader, we turned our back on Him and took matters into our own hands. We told God we know better than He knows what is best for us. WE DID THAT and we continue to do that! We do! You can lie to yourself if you want to, we do it all the time, but it's the truth. We have this idea of things and expect them to go accordingly and when they don't how easy is it for us to just get mad at God, believing that He should have done things differently, He should have allowed things to happen another way- OUR WAY. We turned our back on God in that garden when we believed that He was keeping something from us and we knew better- that things should be the way we thought, not the way He commanded. I say we and I mean we because everyone of us had the same potential to commit the same first sin. Eve wasn't someone unique, she was a human being given a free will just like you and I are.  Each time we choose to sin we are making the same choice- we are choosing to disobey God.

We were kept from seeing our CREATOR because we chose and continue to choose that path. Once we were set down that road there was no going back. We could NOT force God to reveal Himself to us. God chose to keep us alive and offer us redemption but FAITH would be required of us.

FAITH is required and faith is believing when we do NOT see, FAITH is having the HOPE that become the EVIDENCE of the thing we CANNOT see.  FAITH- we are NOT allow to see GOD. We are NOT allowed to see our SALVATION.  We are NOT being given TANGIBLE proof. 

Faith has been required of all of God's chosen from the first to the last.

None could please God without FAITH, without BELIEVING in all they could not see, without HOPING for GOD, that HOPE being the EVIDENCE of His existence, EVIDENCE of HIS LOVE!

Heb 11:1  Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
Heb 11:2  For by it the elders obtained a good report.
Heb 11:3  Through FAITH we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.

The worlds were FRAMED by the WORD of GOD.
THINGS which are SEEN were NOT MADE of things which do APPEAR.

The WORD of GOD created the WORLDS.

Does everyone believe this? No.

It takes FAITH to believe this. We are asked to believe without seeing, without touching, without detail explanations that involve all the whys and wherefores.  If you've ever been in love, or have loved someone you know that it's not completely explainable down to the last detail, yet you know it's real, it exists. There are a million things we cannot explain and yet we believe them because they are. God IS and many choose not to believe as they try to believe there are other ways of answering things, that scientists will open their eyes to everything just by their supposedly educated hypothesis and so on. Because their words are plentiful and their ideas grandiose they try to explain everything when in the end, the very end of it, ONLY FAITH will give the true answers.

More tomorrow all by the GRACE of God!

IN HIS LOVE!
IN HIS MERCY!
ALL BY HIS GRACE!

Provoke unto love - 2

Heb 10:24  And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works

Yes, I'm coming back to this because we generally don't think much about provoking someone to love and to good works.

The word provoke has taken on bad connotations. When we think of provoking we think about teasing, instigating, getting people to do things that aren't good. Provoking someone to react in a bad way. We generally just don't usually hear the term in this way-  'He provoked me to do good.'  We do however hear this. 'He encouraged me to do good.'   The word is provoke and that means to incite and again we do not think good things when we think about inciting.  We think about inciting to anger, inciting to riot, we don't think about inciting to love and good works. But we HAVE to think about it because we are told to consider one another and in that considering we are to PROVOKE to love and to good works.

Incite to do good. 
Incite to love.

We know what it means to provoke to do bad we're good at that aren't we? We know how to get on each others nerves easily. But we need to know how to easily provoke to good.

Ask yourself right now, when is the last time you provoked someone to do good, to love?

I know people who seem to do it all the time. Their lives are spent seeking to do good for others and encouraging others to do it as well.   These people are living closer to God than most because they are loving! And we are called to LOVE!

We are NOT called to be loved, but to GIVE LOVE.

We've gotten things so screwed up, and it's been screwed up for so long that we honestly believe we deserve love and all that we imagine comes with it. We deserve it and if we get it then maybe, just maybe we'll give it too. 

We believe we are owed love. That being loved by others is our RIGHT and if we aren't loved then something is wrong somewhere, with others maybe or more often than not we internalize not being loved and believe that the fault lies with us, that there is something wrong with us and that's why we aren't loved. We look for a superficial love, our society has made that superficial love all important, more important than the real love that God intended. The truth is we should LOVE FIRST and if love is returned than praise GOD, but if it's not we can't let that dictate our ability to LOVE.

We need to provoke each other to love.
I need others to provoke me to love, and I need to provoke others to love.  When we provoke and are provoked to love we are being surrounded by love, aren't we?

Yet I have no guarantees that anyone will provoke me to love especially this day and age. I'm not guaranteed to have anyone poking at me mentally, emotionally telling me daily to love, to love, to love, to love…..loveeeeeeeeeeeee!   And I do have someone a principality, a power in SATAN who will constantly do all he can to keep me from loving, or wanting to love in anyway, even in the smallest ways. Sometimes those small ways mean a lot and Satan hates all love because he knows where the REAL source of TRUE love is, and he hates God.

LOVE.

It's such a simple answer, but it means so incredibly much!

GOD'S LOVE.

True love, unlike the perverted love that we know so well.

We are never deprived of GOD'S love and yet how many people long for love- that hollow, poor excuse for love that Satan has introduced and that He withholds and destroys all the time?  People long for it, they ache for this love, they die for this love, they kill for this love, they do crazy things for this love, and yes, at times they do wonderful things for this love. That love can only destroy because it's NOT God's LOVE, the true love that we need so desperately, the love we truly should be longing for. We can find God's true love in His Word and know it's revealed perfectly through the love of His SON, the Sacrifice.

God please provoke us to love, YOUR LOVE.  Please Lord help us to provoke each other to YOUR true love and through that- good works.  Please LORD all in YOU, all THROUGH YOU!

In YOUR LOVE!
By YOUR GRACE!
YOUR MERCY!

Provoke unto love

Heb 10:24  And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works:
Heb 10:25  Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.

Provoke unto LOVE and GOOD WORKS.
EXHORTING one another and so much more as you see the DAY APPROACHING.

Provoke- incitement to good.
Exhort- implore, entreat, pray.

We are to incite one another to LOVE and to GOOD WORKS.
We are to get together and IMPLORE, ENTREAT, PRAY for one another more and more as we see the day of the coming of the LORD is approaching.

Do we do this?
Do we INCITE, do we PROVOKE one another to LOVE? To do GOOD?

Seriously. This is something we really need to think about. If we are NOT inciting one another to LOVE and do GOOD what exactly are we doing? If we aren't praying for one another, then how are we helping each other, encouraging each other? 

It's so easy to tear one another down. We read something like this--

2Ti 4:2  Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine.
2Ti 4:3  For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears;
2Ti 4:4  And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.

These verses telling us to preach the word, to REPOVE, REBUKE, EXHORT with longsuffering and doctrine- because there will be a time when people will NOT want to hear sound doctrine but only want to hear things that make them feel good, they won't want truth but lies that comfort them.

So these two verses seem a bit contradictory-

Provoke to LOVE and GOOD WORKS.
REPROVE, REBUKE.

Can you provoke to love if you are reproving and rebuking?

At our Bible study this week we talked about this, about how maybe we should reprove one another when we see one another doing wrong, but it was quickly shut down and then decided we should only do that when it's something serious, not nitpick at each others many faults, faults we all seem to have.

We don't want ANYONE pointing out our faults especially when we are so aware of them ourselves. To put ourselves up for intense scrutiny means realizing others do see things in us that are not Godly. 

Someone might point out that I have a very selfish streak, and what would I say in reply? I know and it's my prayer that God help me overcome this awfulness in me. Would it hurt me to have others point out my faults, yes. But is that hurt a result of PRIDE in me? If it is a result of my pride then this too is an awful thing.

No, I'm not saying I want to sit at my Bible Study and point out the faults I see in those around me, I don't and I won't! Why? Because they are aware of their own faults. And I do agree that if there was something major that I saw and truly believed that I should reprove. But … and it is a but… it gets so confusing because maybe it is that selfishness in me that needs more work on. And by work I mean maybe I do need it pointed out and in having it pointed out have others pray for me. We don't rebuke and reprove for no reason, but rather to HELP.

We are to PRAY for each other! We are not to simply reprove, rebuke, and so on without any LOVE in us for those we are confronting.  Without LOVE it's all wrong!

We really do need to PROVOKE to LOVE and GOOD WORKS and we certainly are not doing that if we spend a lot of time pointing our fingers  at each others faults.  Maybe people do not want to hear about their faults and that's their right, and we need to pray for that also. We need to pray to accept any reproof that comes our way and let that reproof work in us as God would have it work.

First and foremost LOVE. LOVE! I can't scream it here on paper as much as I want to, I could put a million exclamation points after it and it still wouldn't be enough.

We need to love and provoke others to love.

We need to consider HOW we can provoke others to love.  Yes, maybe we are to reprove and rebuke but we have to remember that reproving and rebuking without love at it's core means absolutely NOTHING, and is wrong, very, very wrong.

More tomorrow all by the GRACE and WILL of our GOD!

In HIS LOVE!

Some... concerning faith have made shipwreck

1Ti 1:19  Holding faith, and a good conscience; which some having put away concerning faith have made shipwreck

Holding faith.
Holding truth.
Holding belief.
Holding a good conscience.
Holding a moral conscience.

We know that without faith it is impossible to please God.

Heb_11:6  But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.

We have to holdfast to the belief that God is who He says He is and all that He says is truth, ALL of it is truth, not a single lie exists in His Word.  We have to hold fast to the belief that God is and that God will reward with eternal life those who have this belief in Him. The moral conscience we must have and holdfast to is the moral compass our God has given us in His Holy Word, in the Moral Law He gave to us. To think otherwise is to not truly believe, to not truly have the faith or good conscience that He demands we have.  What good is NOT believing and desiring something you don't truly believe in? Seriously.  It makes no sense at all. Like a person wanting to buy up all the coconut cream pies in a bakery and they don't even like coconut, they'd be doing it for all the wrong reasons, perhaps so no one else could have them. The reasons for not believing are many, an atheist could tell you several, but at least atheists are not trying to pretend they believe, they are not believe half-heartedly, they are not putting on a show, they aren't caught up in deception, deceiving themselves or others. There are so incredibly many people caught up in a lie of unbelief, the lie of living life NOT with a good conscience, NOT with a moral conscience.  They've taken the moral law of God and trashed it, but not fully, just enough so that it is no longer truly God's moral law but a law of their own making, a law they can keep and allow themselves to be deceived. 

Some having put away concerning faith- have made shipwreck.

They don't believe the moral law of God is truly His law of love, a law that reveals His amazing love. They've taken that law and stripped it of it's power, because ANY change in a law that God has made is instantly wrong, it's instantly sin. We CAN'T change God's word in any way to suit our own agendas.

A shipwreck.

Imagine a shipwreck.  Nothing good comes from a shipwreck. Destruction, chaos, pain, utter ruin, these are the things that are easy to think about when you imagine a shipwreck.  Another very important thing to consider is the fact that the ship- that very necessary vehicle you were using to get to your destination- is gone. You can NO longer use that ship to get where you want to go.  How many people especially in long ago days were killed in shipwrecks, how many were left stranded indefinitely by the shipwreck?  A shipwreck.

How many people have made a shipwreck of faith?
How many people are deceived about their faith and it is a shipwreck they've tried to repair with bubble gum and wallpaper. They might think the ship is fixed because the wallpaper is on the walls but that ship will never sail properly, never.

Please Lord help us to hold fast to our Faith without any wavering! Let us hold fast to our good conscience keeping Your moral laws fully as they were designed by You to be kept- through YOUR power, not our own. Please LORD we need so much to be aware of our failures, our faults, our self-deceptions. Tear away our blinders, open our hearts to let us see the truth of ourselves so that we may fall before you on our knees knowing that we are nothing without YOU and ALL YOU are!

Help us LORD, save us from ourselves! Help us to DILIGENTLY seek YOU in all things!

All in YOUR LOVE! All by YOUR GRACE!

War a good warfare

War a good warfare.

1Ti 1:16  Howbeit for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might shew forth all longsuffering, for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe on him to life everlasting.
1Ti 1:17  Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honour and glory for ever and ever. Amen.

1Ti 1:18  This charge I commit unto thee, son Timothy, according to the prophecies which went before on thee, that thou by them mightest war a good warfare

According to the prophecies- which went before thee- that thou by mightest war a good warfare.

War a good warfare.

1Ti 6:12 
Fight the good fight of faith,
lay hold on eternal life,
whereunto thou art also called,
 and hast professed a good profession before many witnesses.

2Co 10:3
For though we walk in the flesh,
we do not war after the flesh:
2Co 10:4
 (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal,
but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds)

2Ti 2:3
Thou therefore endure hardness,
 as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.
2Ti 2:4
 No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life;
that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier.

Remember this song--

Onward, Christian soldiers, marching as to war,
With the cross of Jesus going on before.
Christ, the royal Master, leads against the foe;
Forward into battle see His banners go!
Refrain:
Onward, Christian soldiers, marching as to war,
With the cross of Jesus going on before.

Onward Christian Soldier.
Marching as to war.

We are just so incredibly entrenched in our everyday lives are we truly keeping God a reality?

Remember this-

Rev 3:14  And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write; These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God;

Rev 3:15
I know thy works,
 that thou art neither cold nor hot
I would thou wert cold or hot.
Rev 3:16 
So then because thou art lukewarm,
 and neither cold nor hot,
I will spue thee out of my mouth.
Rev 3:17 
Because thou sayest, I am rich,
and increased with goods,
 and have need of nothing;
 and knowest not that thou art wretched,
 and miserable,
 and poor,
 and blind,
and naked

We are not cold
And
We are not hot

We are not indifferent to Christianity.
But we are not on fire for Christianity either.

We are LUKEWARM.

We believe we are RICH- we have plenty of Christianity, more than enough to get us through to heaven.
We believe we are INCREASING with GOODs- we are only growing more and more towards our goal of being Christ's.
We believe we have NEED of NOTHING- we have ALL we need and need NO MORE, we have ENOUGH, we're FINE, our walk with Christ is just wonderful, we lack NOTHING.

We do not know that we are-

WRETCHED.
MISERABLE.
POOR.
BLIND.
NAKED.

A soldier in battle who believes he is invulnerable is the most at risk.

The war simple isn't REAL enough for people to truly want to put on their armor.

Because most of us here in the United States do not face any sort of persecution for our belief in Christ it's hard to feel as if we are in a war.

We tend to equate war with being physically persecuted and all too often Satan simple leaves us alone allowing us to grow completely complacent, not able to recognize the underlying spiritual battle we are embroiled in daily.  Why bother with those he has under his control, right? Any evil general in a war would be called crazy if he stirred up those on his own side and awoke them to the his nefarious goals. Keep the people asleep, keep them neither hot nor cold, make them believe they have need of nothing, this keeps them nice and cozy, and very deceived.

I read something earlier today about how the deceived do not know they are deceived, and we tend to forget that. How rare is it for a person to recognize they are being deceived especially when they are happy, content, comfy, and cozy in that deception?

How are we to war a good warfare when we aren't even recognizing the truth of the war we are in simply because we are not face to face with outright Christian persecution?

How do we make it reality? How do we break out of the complacency? How do we become enlightened and no longer deceived?

How do we recognize our wretchedness, our miserable state, our destitution, our blindness, our nakedness?

We need to WAKE UP!
We need to STOP demanding complacency!
We need to recognize that we are truly in the middle of battlefield!
And this war has NO leaves to go home and relax. There is NO time off in this war. What we have in this war is the surety that we are fighting on the winning side, the victor has already been decided, what's left to decide is which side we want to be on - the winning side or the losing side.  The winning side won't be the side with the luxuries and spoils, not in this war. The losing side has all the flesh trappings, all things desired by our carnal senses.  This is why so many would rather align with the losing side, because the losing side offers a life of ease in many ways and particularly an ease of conscience that keeps the guilt at bay. 

We have to war a good warfare and the only way for us to do this is to realize we are in a war, a real, real war.

Please LORD help us!
We don't want to be lukewarm, we don't want to be spewed out of Your mouth! We need the RICHES that only come from YOU, we need to be CLOTHED by YOU, we need to SEE with Your eyesalve! We need to recognize our true state and not be deceived by Satan. We need to WAR and GOOD WARFARE through YOU! We want to war a good warfare! We choose to be on YOUR SIDE LORD! Help us! SAVE US!

All through YOUR GLORY, YOUR POWER, ALL THROUGH YOUR LOVE!

Slow to anger

1Ti 1:16  Howbeit for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might shew forth all longsuffering, for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe on him to life everlasting.

Words of truth.

Longsuffering-  a pattern to those who would believe on Jesus to life everlasting.

Longsuffering - slow to anger.

Jesus Christ shows ALL longsuffering. We do not know what it really means to be slow to anger until you look at our Savior, until  you look at God. We tend to believe we are long suffering when we don't get mad immediately but truthfully that is next to nothing compared to what our God has had to endure in the way of being slow to anger dealing with us.

Read the following verses on longsuffering--

Exo 34:6  And the LORD passed by before him, and proclaimed, The LORD, The LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth

Psa_86:15  But thou, O Lord, art a God full of compassion, and gracious, longsuffering, and plenteous in mercy and truth.

Rom_2:4  Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance?

Rom_9:22  What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction

2Co_6:6  By pureness, by knowledge, by longsuffering, by kindness, by the Holy Ghost, by love unfeigned

Gal_5:22  But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith

Eph_4:2  With all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love

Col_1:11  Strengthened with all might, according to his glorious power, unto all patience and longsuffering with joyfulness

Col_3:12  Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering

2Ti_4:2  Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine.

1Pe_3:20  Which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water.

2Pe_3:9  The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

2Pe_3:15  And account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you


The LONGSUFFERING of our LORD IS SALVATION!

If our God was anything but longsuffering we would not exist.

How is your temperament? Are you slow to anger? Do you suffer much before it angers you? Or are you quick to anger? Do little things set you off? Does something just not have to go your way and you're instantly upset? Does it take very little for your ire to rise? What if GOD had your temperament? Seriously. Just how long would God's being slow to anger last if He had YOUR longsuffering attitude?

How many of us get angry at least once a day, once a week, once a month?  I'm not even going to go to once a year because part of me believes that I don't really know anyone that has gone a whole year without getting angry. 

In the GRAND scheme of things is even a year a long time to go without getting angry? No. Not in the eternal realm we are truly dealing with. 

This particular verse-

2Pe_3:9  The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

The promise being the SECOND COMING OF OUR SAVIOR which ushers in a whole new existence. When that promise is realized then everything changes, everything. There will be NO MORE longsuffering on God's part because all will have been decided and His fury over sin can be fully realized.  We are BLESSED that HE is LONGSUFFERING, if He weren't slow to anger we would be totally wiped out, humans would never exist. Yet we do exist and He is our example. We are called to be LONGSUFFERING, we are called to be slow to anger.

1Ti 1:14  And the grace of our Lord was exceeding abundant with faith and love which is in Christ Jesus.
1Ti 1:15  This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief.
1Ti 1:16  Howbeit for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might shew forth all longsuffering, for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe on him to life everlasting.

Jesus Christ showed forth ALL longsuffering toward Paul- who called himself the chief of sinners. I don't know about you, but I feel like the chief of sinners myself and I PRAY that the LORD JESUS CHRIST shows ALL LONGSUFFERING towards me so that I many obtain mercy, His amazing mercy.

Please LORD please continue to be slow to anger, please Lord we need Your great mercy! 

Help us LORD to be longsuffering, in this world that has us angry all the time over one thing or another, please LORD teach us to be slow to anger.  By YOUR GRACE, through YOUR LOVE!