Growing in the Forbearance of God, Part 1

From the very beginning it has been determined what we shall be, yet we still spend most of our lives investing in temporary identities that will have no place in eternity, unless we allow them to define us on this side of eternity!

• ‘The Love of God in Daily Life’ by Tom Talamantez 

When God made man in His image, there was already a plan set in place that we would be conformed to the image of Jesus (Romans 8:29).  We would be set on a path to walk as He walked, with the Holy Spirit inside us to guide us along with His Word.  With His word as our lamp and His Spirit as our Counselor, we press on in this journey until Christ is formed in us (Galatians 4:19).  So with that, my desire here is to put forth a simple understanding of the forbearance of God, a common thread that binds all true believers to the Vine and the foundational truth of what it means to become like Jesus!

Philippians 4:5 says to let your forbearing spirit be known to all men (NASB 1979). If there is one verse that captures what it means to represent Christ in the world, I would select Philippians 4:5, largely because of the word that Paul uses here to define a forbearing spirit.  If you look up this verse in a dozen or more translations, you will find that the word is translated in many different ways, for reasons that I am about to share.  The Greek word EPIEKES is often translated as “gentleness” in modern translations, but early translations of the New American Standard, Revised Standard and the 1901 American Standard version all translate the word as forbearing.  I think that is the best translation because it can mean so many things, but as you will see, all of the possible definitions share the qualities of grace and humility.  According to John MacArthur, the word can be summarized as humble graciousness, which is why I believe that forbearing is the best translation.  These are a few examples of what the word could mean: contentment (Philippians 4:11-12), goodwill for another beyond reason such as the story of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37), joyful charity (2Corinthians 9:7), over generosity by giving more than what is reasonable (Luke 15:20); not getting what you deserve but rather receiving graciously what you do not deserve (Luke 23:34), being slandered or misrepresented (James 3:8), humbly accepting when your reputation is ruined by gossip and lies (Genesis 39:19-23), accepting mistreatment without malice or hatred (Acts 7:60), and accepting being hated, yet still reaching out in love (Romans 12:20). The word is packed with meaning and should be known as it is central to a life of serving God and an important part of Christ being formed in us.

Since the Apostle Paul instructs us to test ourselves to see if we are in the faith (2Corinthians 13:5), I have provided a few characteristics of saving faith so we can test our own hearts in order to ensure that we do not fail the test.  This is in no way comprehensive, but can be a barometer to see if your vessel is chartered towards Christ.

1) Humility is the first characteristic of a believer.  Jesus spoke to this in the Sermon on the Mount when he said. “Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the Kingdom of God.” (Matthew 5:3).  This can best be understood as the “poverty of spirit” which is to say that the Kingdom of God belongs to those who recognize that their entire being is corrupted by sin.  Humility is the opposite of pride and Jesus teaches on both quite extensively in the gospels.  The first trait of our Identity in Christ is to understand that we are poor, that is to say that we are spiritually destitute, beggars at the foot of the Cross, with nothing to offer, just completely dependent on God’s mercy to save us. The very recognition of our condition requires a humble spirit, because pride creates blind spots in our self-assessment that distort visions of our self.

2) True Personal Worship for His glory and His purpose.  God is seeking those who will worship Him in spirit and in truth (John 4:23).  True worship has two aspects to it which are personal worship and corporate worship.  Personal worship  is to nurture our disposition to be thankful, humble and gracious as a lifestyle that manifests in glorifying God in  everything we do (1 Corinthians 10:31).  We nurture our disposition by abiding in Christ (John 15:5), which simply means to remain in Christ or remain joined to Christ, so by faith we seek to live (abide) in union with Christ.  The discipline of reading the Bible and allowing it to convict our hearts (Hebrews 4:12) and to see our own sin (Psalm 119:11) produces a thankful heart, and we begin to give thanks for the things we take for granted such as waking up in the morning, sight, taste, touch, aroma, creation, the bible, clean water, shoes, indoor plumbing, medicine, community, etc.  In this practice, the Holy Spirit is writing kindness and truth on our hearts (Proverbs 3:3) which is seen by those we engage (Proverbs 3:4) and this grows our faith and trust in God (Proverbs 3:5-7), and eventually we are seen as a person who spends time with Jesus (Acts 4:13).  In application, I have found it helpful to literally ask myself the question of why I do things, how will it glorify God, how will it represent God to the lost and what are my motives for doing the things I do.  Proverbs 16:2 says that the plans of man are pure in his own eyes, but God weighs the motives.

3) True Corporate Worship is our participation in the church community.  This is the practice of giving and receiving in the body of Christ.  This means that we bring our gifts to contribute to the needs of the saints whether that is by the gift of encouragement, praying for others, sharing what God is teaching us, listening to what God is teaching others, sharing in acts of charity together, and many other acts that contribute to the building up of the church.  Every morning when I am completing my prayer time, I always conclude by asking God to prepare my heart to give and receive, for the simple reason that giving and receiving together can be difficult.  I have found that many believers are good at giving, but find it difficult to receive, so I pray that I would be better at not depriving people the blessing of giving to me whether that is prayer, encouragement, teaching, or just being available with my time.  Every believer has something to offer to the church and must not deny the church community of the gifts and talents that God has designed into us, so we are to participate in church community and not merely be an observer.

This brings me to an important topic that is way too big for this article, but that is to understand that there are two styles of corporate worship.  Expressive worship (bottom up man to God) and Formative worship (top down God to man).  1) For many years I practiced Expressive worship in many different evangelical churches.  Something that often left me feeling exhausted and not refreshed at all, largely because this type of worship has a heavy emphasis on emotional experience.  I am not wired this way, so I often found that communion with God was not happening in the high energy experience often initiated by rock style church music.  As someone who is highly introspective, I find communion with God in nature, on an empty beach, or walking in nature early in the morning.  2) In recent years, I have transitioned to formative worship and have found that my communion with God and awareness of His presence stronger than ever and always experienced in church community.  This transition for me began on August 20, 2015 and took a few years for me to see what God was doing, largely because I was raised to “demonize” this type of worship as “religious.”  What I have learned is that I grew up practicing American Evangelical Christianity or “churchianity” as is the popular critical term these days.  What I did not know was that for two thousand years, the Christian church practiced the three cords of worship which are liturgical, evangelical and charismatic.  In this style of worship, everyone participates and I found that I was no longer just an observer of the show, but that I have a part in what God is doing in His church, this is the practice of the liturgy.  Not mindless rote repetition, but sharing in the worship of God, with one voice, with the family of God!  In this process, I joined the Anglican church and my communion with God has never been so close.  It would later come as no surprise that some of my favorite authors where Anglican such C.S. Lewis, J.I. Packer, Jonathan Edwards, N.T. Wright, Alan Fadling, and many others, even Jane Austen, so I could see how all their writing were profoundly impacted by the style of worship they practiced.  As someone more introverted, what I bring to the table has never fit well in trying to express myself to God, but when worship is designed to form us like Christ and we are the receiver and not the giver (top down), then God can meet me where I am, alleviating me of having to bring something to the table, and my position moves from responsibility to response which is quite refreshing.  This practice of worship also alleviates the believer of the exhaustive, ongoing effort to produce new “productions” of worship because it is not about us, but it is about God as the subject and object of worship and we are simply the recipients of formative change.  Much can be said about this examination of worship, but my testimony is that going to “church” no longer feels like an obligation, but something that I am anxious to attend. 

4) Godly thinking – the bible has a lot to say about training our minds and maintaining governance over our thought life.  The biggest challenge to biblical thinking is the discipline of not bowing down to conventional wisdom and the pressure to conform that often comes along with it.  It is instinctive within our sin nature to always take a pragmatic approach without fully considering what God might be doing in these circumstances.  So it is important to seek His will in the situation, and not try to find the quickest path to restore our comfort.  We are given an example in Isaiah 30:1-3 when God warned Judah to not seek comfort from Egypt (Egypt is a symbol of the world in Biblical typology).  God says you seek to execute a plan but not my plan (v.1), you did not pray to Me about this decision and you have sought safety and shelter in the shadow of Egypt (darkness of the world) (v.2), and ultimately your decision to seek comfort in the world will be your shame and humiliation (v.3).  Living victoriously in the truth of who we are called to be as believers begins with what we allow in our minds.  We need to have the Word of God so engrained in our hearts and minds that when we come across corrupt thinking, we have discernment to embrace, challenge, reject, or correct. We need to practice this and pray for this discipline.  Every morning I pray for my inner circle, and one of the prayers I offer is that we would be people who have the Bible engrained in us to the point that biblical knowledge becomes our visceral knowledge to build our confidence in all of our decisions, as well as to not blindly follow the advice or opinions of friends, family, teachers, counselors, or church leaders, but to test everything by scripture and cling to what is good and reject everything that goes against God (1 Thessalonians 5:21; Philippians 4:8).  If we commit to Biblical thinking, you will have the profound experience of the Holy Spirit bringing scripture to mind in almost every situation as a sign post to proceed or retreat.  This process by itself will push people away from you, but those who seek truth and seek to know God more fully will gravitate towards you.  Lastly, we need to understand that 1) our faith does not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God (1Corinthians 2:5),  2) we have been given the Mind of Christ (1 Corinthians 2:16), 3) we have the power of the Spirit (2Timothy 1:7), and 4) we have the promise that God is doing good things in us (Philippians 1:6).  I have written several articles on Biblical Thinking which are linked here: Biblical Thinking

Much more can be written on growing a forbearing spirit.  The sum of all of this is to continue to grow in holiness.  In everything that we do in life is either making us more like Jesus or more like Satan.  When we use the terminology to “follow Christ”, what we are really saying is that we are going to walk on the path that transforms us to be more like Christ, which is spurred on by the desire that Jesus must increase and we must decrease (John 3:30).  To scoff at this idea is an indication of where you heart is today.  One might easily justify that this is extreme or point out that some things are innocuous necessities to life that have nothing to do with holiness nor are they evil, but it must be pointed out that this perspective is only possible in limited human thinking in which we focus on ourselves rather than recognizing the truth that God is always with us (Hebrews 4:13), we are to do ALL things for God’s glory (1Corinthians 10:31), and we are to invite God into our work (Colossians 3:17, 23). Jesus is the life (John 14:6) and when we follow Christ, our life is not our own, but we have been bought with a price which is by the blood of Christ (1Corinthians 6:19-20).  To think that God is only to be engaged at our convenience and that everything is going to be on our terms, is a good indication that you are growing to be more like Satan.  If you still disagree, then my encouragement to you would be to make reading your Bible a priority, take it with you, especially to church, search the scriptures throughout the day rather than wasting time on social media, and pray about the validity of the things I shared above.  When God calls us, it is not only to be His child for His glory and His purpose, but it is also to become holy because without holiness, no one will see the Lord (Hebrews 12:14).

Prayer: Eternal God, heavenly Father, you have graciously accepted us as living members of your Son our Savior Jesus Christ, and you have fed us with spiritual food in the Sacrament of His Body and Blood.  Send us now into the world in peace and grant us strength and courage to love and serve you with gladness and singleness of heart, through Christ our Lord. Amen!