Patience

DEVOTION 2 PETER PATIENCE 2 Peter 3:15-16 15 Bear in mind that our Lord's patience means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom that God gave him. 16 He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction. NIV It is not difficult to understand how ignorant and unstable people distort the scriptures for they truly cannot understand them, because of the absence of the Holy Spirit in their lives. It is true the God could have simply wiped out all of mankind, all of the universe and started all over again with another completely new system and a creation that is totally different with people of a different nature. But he did not and has offered a way of salvation, a way to restore our relationship to him to a rightful manner through faith in Jesus Christ as the sacrifice for our sin, our disobedience. Yes he did destroy most of mankind with the flood, but he kept his creation in tact with Noah and his family, with mankind still having the original nature he gave us, with the ability to be disobedient. And he waits, at least in the time frame of waiting as we understand time. He desires that all should be saved and none should perish. Could this actually mean that somehow in his divine way, he manages to get through to unbelievers just prior to their end? At least he manages somehow that they hear the salvation message, and they are offered peace with him, through the cross so they have the choice. The fact still remains that we who believe do understand what the truth is and our hearts and minds are illuminated by the scriptures. We are not distracted by the false words of men who distort the truth into something which can be used for their own benefit, which will ultimately bring destruction upon them. Because they refuse the truth, they make up their own truth. We do not have to make up any truths of our own for we have God’s and he has given us the Holy Spirit to teach us this truth, to guide us through it with understanding. Yet we should continue to endeavor to bring this truth to others, because we do not know the day when his patience will end. Yet back to that question, will he find a way to reach them before their end? Does the way include us? Are we the only way he has chosen to reach them before their death? Or does he use some divine method we are not aware of, and only those in the moment just before death can see? Either way, we need to do our part, as we are called to do, for it is because of his patience that we have the salvation we do. Had he come before we believed would we have been destroyed? Thank God for his patience. Even the patience he has with us during those times we fail him, when we act in a disobedient way. What would we do without the patience of God?