I now understand why long-suffering is one of the Fruits of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23)
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.
Christ showed us the ultimate long-suffering; on Calvary....you long suffer when you can suffer long for LOVE. And one thing I know about God, is even though we may have to long suffer (awhile) here on earth; God's word will not turn back void
2 Peter 3:9
The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is long-suffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
If you want to know if you posses the Spirit of long suffering; watch the next time God allows something that you really want to be taken from you, do you pray and stand still; or do you murmuring and complain... sometimes we are being blessed by God and don't even realize it because we are so fleshly that all we care about is how we feel. I am learning that it's never been about us, rather what God wants to do through us. When we long suffer we share a small bit of Jesus on Calvary; I thank God that He sees enough in me to allow me to share something that my own intellect can not even comprehend. The next time long suffering comes your way instead of turning on it, you need to embrace it. Please understand that God is very aware that we are made up of natural as well as spiritual, and also understand that our Spirit man overrides the natural man. I will never be able to express my love to Jesus for what He did for me and the whole world on Calvary; and in spite of myself and my own agenda, He still had compassion, grace, and mercy for my soul; if that is not true love and long suffering at it's best, I don't know what is. Stop complaining about the things that you feel aren't going right and start thanking God for the bad as well as the good that comes. When we start thinking more of Him and less of us, then we will see the manifestation of God moving in our lives. Take the time to remember that every time you have long suffered, you have shared on of Christ most precious gifts. God loves you and so do I.
