THE APOSTLE JAMES TEACHES PATIENCE
The 4 weeks prior to the celebration of Christmas, is referred to as Advent by the Christian and Catholic community. It is a time when we should be practicing patience as we prepare in great anticipation for the birth of Jesus Christ, Emmanuel, God made man. It is a time for patience as we reflect upon the significance of this up and coming event and the enormous changes that will enter into our lives when Our Lord finally arrives.
The Apostle James The Greater, of Zebedee, brother to Apostle John, one of the very first of the three apostles teaches us in His Epistle the importance of exercising patience, but not just during this time of Advent, but for all time.
In JAMES:5: 1-6 James admonishes the people:
"Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you. Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are motheaten. Your Gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you and shall eat yor flesh is it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days. Behold the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields which is of you kept back by fraud crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of The Lord of sabaoth. Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth and been wanton; ye have nourished your hearts as in the days of slaughter. Ye have condemned and killed the just; and he doth not resist."
James draws to the minds of the people how they have misused their times, their wealth, their power over their servants who reap for them to provide wealth and power for themselves and have neglected their responsibility to God the Lord of the sabaoth.
James then goes on to counsel the people as to how they should be living, in order for God to see them in a proper and fitting light.
JAMES: 5: 7-10
"Be patient therefore, bretheren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold the husbandman waitheth for the precious fruit of the earth, and have long patience for it, until he receiveth? the early and the latter rain. Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh. Grudge not one against another, bretheren, lest ye be condemned: behold the judge standeth at the door. Take my bretheren, the prophets, who have spoken of the Lord for an example of suffering affliction and of patience."
Our Heavenly Father requests our patience as he works wonders in our everyday lives, such miraculous wonders take sometimes days, or months even years to form the perfect plan and bring it out at the perfect time. It was 430 years from the time God revealed his plan to Isaiah until the time of Jesus arrival and yet still another 30 years for Jesus to grow up and begin His ministry amongst the jewish people.
All goodness must patiently await the perfection of God’s timing. He must never be rushed for His plans are perfection in every way.
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