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God is Love
 

 

 

A Message From Peter James
 


 

Faith And Long Suffering
 


      

 

As the world plunges ever further into chaos and confusion,

there are two critical spiritual gifts which we all need.

These are Faith and Long Suffering.

 

When discussing Faith, many people think that this is a human quality that we can work up.

Many people say I wish I had the faith like some other person.

They are unaware that the faith that matters is the faith of Jesus Christ.

It is not a human faith, which we can intensify by some activity.

Genuine believers are still only human beings who have a spiritual calling.

We are called to spiritual warfare where the Eternal implements,

His already gained victory over Satan.

 

Spiritual problems, require spiritual solutions.

Often our physical problems are the result of spiritual conditions.

 

Our problems are often much greater than we can physically cope with.

 

Our faith has to be utterly and completely in the Eternal God.

We have not only to believe but also to know that we know,

that the Eternal is looking after our very best interests in all situations.

It does not matter how things look to us, or if nothing seems to be happening,

or if pain is involved.

 

David and Goliath,

When David a mere youth confronted Goliath, this was much more than

a confrontation between a physical big man and a little boy.

 

1 Samuel 17:33  And Saul said to David,

Thou art not able to go against this Philistine to fight with him:

for thou art but a youth, and he a man of war from his youth.

 

This was just as much a spiritual confrontation as a physical one.

 

David was a very unusual youth.

 

1 Samuel 16:13 Then Samuel took the horn of oil,

and anointed him in the midst of his brethren:

and the Spirit of the LORD came upon David from that day forward….

 

David knew absolutely that he could destroy Goliath because the Spirit of the Lord

was upon him. His faith greatly exceeded that of his brothers and the whole Israelite army.

It was not a faith that he had to work up.

To David it was a reality.

His faith was completely in the Eternal God.

 

Zechariah 4:6  Then he answered and spake unto me, saying,

This is the word of the LORD unto Zerubbabel, saying,

Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the LORD of hosts.

 

We can see clearly where David’s faith lay.

He had no doubt whatsoever that the battle is the Lord’s and that it was

the Eternal who gave victory.

 

1 Samuel 17:45  Then said David to the Philistine,

Thou comest to me with a sword, and with a spear, and with a shield:

but I come to thee in the name of the LORD of hosts,

the God of the armies of Israel, whom thou hast defied.

46  This day will the LORD deliver thee into mine hand; and I will smite thee,

and take thine head from thee; and I will give the carcases of the host of the Philistines

this day unto the fowls of the air, and to the wild beasts of the earth;

that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel.

47  And all this assembly shall know that the LORD saveth not with sword and spear:

for the battle is the LORD’S, and He will give you into our hands.

 

Goliath was no ordinary person either.

We see that the land of Canaan was inhabited by giants.

 

Numbers 13:33  And there ( In the Promised Land, Canaan) we saw the giants,

the sons of Anak, which come of the giants:

and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight.

 

The word translated giants in the above verse has the exact same meaning

as in Genesis 6:4

giants, the Nephilim.

 

In our documents

The Days of Noah are today

Building the Ark – Fallen Angels,

we show that these nephilim are the offspring of fallen angels and the daughters of men.

 

These giants were cannibalistic savages.

 

Numbers 13:32  And they brought up an evil report of the land which

they had searched unto the children of Israel, saying,

The land, through which we have gone to search it,

is a land that eateth up the inhabitants thereof;

and all the people that we saw in it are men of a great stature.

 

Goliath was some 9 feet tall.

His armour weighed some 125 lb.

The shaft on his spear was as thick and heavy as a weavers beam.

The iron spear head weighted 15 lb.            

These beings were of phenomenal strength.

Just the sight of them created fear and panic in their opponents.

You can read the full report in 1 Samuel 17.

In the battle between David and Goliath, David took his sling and 5 smooth stones

and went towards his enemy. He faced him and confronted him in the name of the Lord.

The stone left his sling and the Eternal guided it to the half-breed’s forehead,

and caused the stone to smash deep into Goliath’s forehead.

In an instant he was dead.

 

The above report is a supreme of example of faith.

We have to ask the Eternal to be all the things which we need.

This includes our faith.

Humanly we nothing that is worth building on.

Therefore personally I prefer to ask the Eternal to be whatsoever I need.

We then have to believe that the Eternal hears and answers us.

He fights our battles, it is none of our doing at all.

 

Even in the battle at Armageddon, we might think that the saints who accompany Christ

wage war with Him.

This is not the case at all.

Christ destroys His enemies with the great sword which comes out of His mouth.

The armies accompany Him that is all.

 

Revelation 19:14  And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses,

clothed in fine linen, white and clean.

15  And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword,

that with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron:

and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.

21  And the remnant were slain with the sword of him that sat upon the horse,

which sword proceeded out of his mouth: and all the fowls were filled with their flesh.

 

We must receive the faith of Christ and then let Him fight all our battles.

 

Revelation 19:16  And he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written,

KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS.

 

The second spiritual gift which we need is long suffering.

 

Many churches today preach a health and wealth gospel.

I am not aware of any that preach that we are called to a life of suffering,

muchless long suffering, although there might well be some.

 

Suffering is essential to our Spiritual growth.

When we suffer we personally become involved in the sufferings of Christ,

for the benefit of the whole body.

This is quite an astounding statement.

 

Colossians 1:24  Now I can find joy amid my sufferings for you,

and I fill up in my own person whatever is lacking in Christ’s afflictions

on behalf of His Body, the Church.

 

A little study will show that the true followers of Christ have always been

persecuted. You can see this in the life of Paul and all the apostles,

and the saints from the time of Christ until now.

Fox’s Book of Martyrs, is dedicated to this subject.

 

Matthew 5:10  Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake:

for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

11  Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you,

and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.

12  Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven:

for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.

 

If your life has been a very easy road all the time, you need to worry,

as that is not the life to which we are called, and which we can expect.

The Eternal gives us the strength to endure whatever suffering comes our way.

I am not saying that it is easy and painless, far from it.

Without the empowerment from the Eternal we simply would not be able to cope.

 

Christ was rejected and still is rejected.

This is a major cause of suffering for us today.

 

Isaiah 53:3  He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows,

and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him;

he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

Isaiah 53:4  Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows:

yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.

Isaiah 53:5  But he was wounded for our transgressions,

he was bruised for our iniquities:

the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.

 

We can forget about all those clean pictures of a crucified Christ

and the little crucifixes which almost everyone wears now a days.

 

Isaiah 51:13 Behold, My servant shall prosper,

he shall be exalted and lifted up, and shall be very high.

Isaiah 51:14  According as many were appalled at thee

—so marred was his visage unlike that of a man,

and his form unlike that of the sons of men—

 

Christ’s body was ripped open by the savage scourging, to the extent

that He almost did not look human. That is what the verses above state.

When it comes to suffering, Christ went into an area that we are unable to go.

We have to realize that their was a spiritual dimension to His suffering.

He took the sins of the whole world on himself.

 

1 John 2:2  And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only,

but also for the sins of the whole world.

 

Propitiation means reconciliation by blood.

 

I think that we all have a very good idea of suffering.

 

We have to consider the concept of long suffering, that is suffering long.

 

We often pray for others to be changed so that they can be easier to get along with.

We pray and pray and nothing happens.

We fail to realize that the Eternal is trying to get us to change and not the other person.

He often wants us to experience what He is experiencing, but we do not grasp this point at all.

 

An example of this is as follows.

 

Let us say that I am desperately wanting to have a mate and get married.

I meet little Miss Wonderful, and I have great hopes that this time

this is going to work, she is the perfect match for me.

Every day I wait for the phone calls, sometimes they come, sometimes they don’t.

I wait for the visits, sometimes they happen, sometimes they don’t.

Every time I hear a car approaching the drive, I look out the window,

can it be a visit from Miss Right, more often than not it is not.

This goes on day after day, week after week, month after month, even year after year.

 

Now we can begin to feel how the Eternal feels, and how long suffering He is.

 

He is lonely, He is asking,

‘Where is My Bride?’

 

He has been waiting for Hs wife, His bride to make herself ready, He is asking

‘Where is My Bride?’

 

He was waiting from the time of Adam, He is asking

‘Where is My Bride?’

 

Since Christ came and died for us all, He is asking,

‘Where is My Bride?’

 

Now that the time has run out the question remains the same.

‘Where is My Bride?’

 

As a young person earnestly desiring to get married,

the waiting is driving you almost insane.

You have done everything possible.

You have made the sacrifices, but it seems all y our plans have stalled,

and all you know is that you are still asking,

‘Where is My Bride?’

 

There is not a great deal of difference in the case of the Eternal.

You will be put into this and similar positions so that you can experience

a little what the Eternal is experiencing.

 

You might actually be married but because of your separate lives under

the same roof you are asking the very same question.

Where is my bride?

 

When you view relationship differences in this light,

it takes on a very different appearance.

 

You can do the same thing with strange situations which you face at your work,

with your children, and the apparent never ending illness which many of us experience.

 

When you come out of all these experiences of long suffering, you are then much

better equipped to empathise with others and help them to bear their burdens.

without this experience all you have is an intellectual understanding but no real

practical experience.

Please do not think that I am saying that long suffering is easy or that it is enjoyable.

It is not.

In my experience is certainly helps me to view things from a different perspective.

In my work with computers, I have spent days resolving problems when there was

no one to whom I could turn. As at one point I was making my living in this way.

I had no choice.

It was always interesting to me that most often when there was someone who could

help me, they were unavailable.

All this taught me patience and long suffering.

 

I hope that this will help us to see that faith and long suffering are two spiritual

qualities that greatly benefit the body of Christ.

We should desire to learn from these painful but necessary experiences.

 

The only way out of ALL dilemmas is Jesus Christ.

        He is the only way of escape.

             Praise the Lord.

          Come soon Lord Jesus.

                      Amen.

     

 

 Messages By Peter James

(Bible Explanations, Messages of Life, Hope & Encouragement)