If there is one thing the Lord would love for all of us to have it is patience.  There is no short cut for learning to be patient.  Learning to be a patience person takes time; a long time.  Living in a culture of fast food, overnight mail and instant messages has trained us to be impatient.  Yet, being impatient is the opposite of what Christ desires for us.   

By its very nature patience is long suffering.  To be patient means we have learned to put up with a lot of junk, from a lot of people, for a long time without losing it and going off on them.  If you’re like me, you want the right to lose your temper and strike back.  But that’s the old sinful nature at work within us, the very nature we must put to death.

Christ wants us to be patient so we will be like Him.  Remember, God is love and love is patient.  Therefore, to be like Christ we must be patient.  To be patient is to love the people for whom Christ died.  We can not love others apart from being patient. 

To be successful in God’s eyes we must be like Christ.  We must love people, all people, even those whom we deem to be unlovable.  Christ loves all, died for all and is patient with all.  We are called to follow in His steps and love as He loves, and that takes patience.

Many of you who read these teachings are in the ministry.  In fact, we are all called to be ministers regardless of our place in life.  That is, we are to be about our Father's business of encouraging others and winning the lost to Christ.  You don't have to be a staff member of a church to be a minister.  If you are a Christian, then you are suppose to be ministering to others everyday.             

Most of us are also goal oriented and that’s fine as long as God sets our goals.  As I talk with many of you I hear about the books you want to write, songs you want to record, sermons you want to preach, jobs you want to succeed in, etc.  I too have similar goals.  But here is the problem: if our preaching, writing a book, recording a cd or getting a better job is the primary focus of life, then we have missed the mark. 

The goal is to build Christ-like relationships with as many people as possible, not to have success as an author, artist, pastor or business person.  The goal is to love people.  Books, sermons and music are merely tools God gives us to help us express our love for people.  Our goal and our focus must always be about building relationships with the people Christ loves.  We must seek His kingdom first by loving people.  Then the books, sermons, music and jobs will follow.

Let us stop measuring our success according to how well we preach, write books or make music.  Rather, we are to measure our success by how much we love people.  We don’t need a big church, book deal or recording contract to love people.  We simply need the Presence of our Savior living through us daily.  And Christ is more than willing to help all of us to be successful at loving people.  Just knowing this isn’t good enough.  We must live it!

My prayer is that we would seek the goal of Christ-like relationships with all people.  I pray that God would bless us with Spirit inspired books, sermons, music and great careers, but that we would never place these things above His people.  May Christ help each of us to be patient, so we can love His people as much as He loves us.  Remember, life is about relationships!

"Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.” 1 John 4:7

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