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Writer's pictureBible Brian

Be longsuffering enough to suffer long enough


One of the worst effects of certain betrayals on me has to be the fear I now have of telling people when I'm concerned about their current behaviour. If I stay quiet, the problem grows, and the friendship breaks down, but if I do open my mouth and voice my concerns, I'm somehow being "selfish" and "manipulative", and the friendship breaks down. People have become so self absorbed, even within the Church, that it is considered better to just cut the people we don't like out of our lives, and we even have the audacity to call that "self care".


The Bible tells us the opposite. We're supposed to be longsuffering. In 1 Corinthians 13:4, this is actually the first attribute love is given. While the way of the world is to put some distance between yourself and the people you don't like, the way of God is to work to fix our broken relationships. Matthew 5:23-24 even elevates reconciliation above bringing gifts to the temple. The modern equivalent of this would be if you have a donation for the Church, but there's a rift between you and a fellow Christian, you've got to hold off on that donation and go reconcile with them.


There are exceptions, of course. If they refuse to repent, especially if they refuse to hear you, your two witnesses, or the Church (Matthew 18:15-17), then you're all good. It's on their head. But when reconciliation depends on you, that's when it becomes your responsibility as a Christian to reconcile. As John MacArthur puts it, "you are never more like God than when you forgive". And how true is that? If you think it's hard to love a brother you don't like, try leaving your home, your family, and your wealth, just to live in their world before actually taking the just punishment for their sin.


That's what Jesus did for you. Think about that. The God who created our entire universe in just 6 days (Exodus 20:11), the God who calls the stars by name (Psalm 147:4), the God who has to stoop to even see our tiny universe (Psalm 113:6), the God who is so much greater than angels (Hebrews 1:4) looks at you, a filthy sinner whose righteous works are nothing but rags to Him (Isaiah 64:6), and He demonstrates His inexplicable love for us by dying in the most brutal and humiliating way human beings have ever invented (Romans 5:8). And yet, you continue to sin. You sin so much that John actually says if you say you have no sin, you're deceiving yourself, and the truth is not in you (1 John 1:8). And yet, in spite of your sin, God is longsuffering towards you. Not even just you, God was longsuffering towards Saul, a man who was the worst of sinners (1 Timothy 1:15-16). A man who hated Jesus so much that killing Him wasn't enough, he had to kill His followers too. And after all that, not only did Jesus forgive Paul, the Church forgave Paul, too.


So what's our excuse? Paul was forgiven for murdering Christians on a regular basis, but the modern Church is too thin skinned to forgive a few harsh words? And we expect God to be glorified by this extremely worldly behavior? To imitate God is to be longsuffering, especially to fellow brethren. If we claim to know God, we have to know love (1 John 4:8). As long as we're of this mentality that we matter more than our brethren, when in reality we should esteem each other above ourselves (Philippians 2:3), the Church will continue to crumble like a dry sand castle under the foot of a child.

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