Have you ever felt the need to pray for patience?
I don’t know about you, but I have prayed for patience many times in my life. Frankly, it seemed the more I prayed for patience, the more trials came my way.
In the past, I would laugh it off and say, “That’s what happens when you pray for patience, things come along that make you need patience.”
Recently, I discovered I have been praying wrong. It wasn’t more patience I needed to pray for at all.
The Bible says in 1 Corinthians 13, love is patient.
If I am filled with the love of God, patience is a fruit of that love. I don’t need to pray for patience, I need to pray that I will be filled to overflowing with the love of God.
The Bible says, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.” (Galatians 5:22-23)
If we are walking in oneness with God, by His Spirit, our fruit will be love…
1 Corinthians 13 teaches us that love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
The fruit of the Spirit is love and the fruit of love is patience, kindness and so much more.
If you are dealing with pride – pray for love. Love is not puffed up.
If you battle a short temper – pray for love. Love is not provoked to anger.
If you have a problem stretching the truth – pray for more love. Love rejoices in the truth.
The list goes on and on. The fruit of love is what we, as Christians, need to be walking in. Especially during the hard times.
This passage of scriptures tells us, prophecies fail, tongues cease, even knowledge will vanish away – but love never, ever fails.
If we are walking in oneness with God,
by His Spirit, our fruit will be love…
I have seen this truth in my life, each and every time I choose love. It does not fail. God’s love in us can conquer anything – it even covers a multitude of sin. (1 Peter 4:8)
Proverbs 10:12 says love covers all sin. Isn’t that amazing!
This is a powerful scripture when we are standing in faith for unsaved loved ones. If we are walking fully in the love of God, praying for them diligently, the love of God in us, is covering them…like a blanket. I love that.
The Bible tells us, GOD IS LOVE. Each and every of these attributes found in 1 Corinthians 13 is found first in God – in who He is. They should be found in us as well.
Today, I want to encourage you, the next time you feel you need patience, pray for love.
Pray Romans 5:5. “May the love of God be shed abroad in our heart by the Holy Spirit, fill us up Lord, with the love of God, fill us until is overflows from us continually.”
And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
Appoint My Days
My love overflows more and more, and I grow in knowledge and understanding. I will live pure and blameless until the day of the Lord’s return. I will be filled with the fruit of my salvation—the righteous character produced in my life by Jesus Christ—for this will bring much glory and praise to God.
Phil 1:9-11
