“Patience People”

"Don’t Stand so close to me"

Do you love music?  Especially songs during Christmas you see the stress of the holiday’s triggers sadness and depression for many people. This time of year, is especially difficult because there’s an expectation of feeling merry and generous, then there’s the foe or enemy of covid. People compare their emotions to what they assume others are experiencing or what they’re supposed to feel. Then they think that they alone fall short. They judge themselves and feel like an outsider.

Christmas carols can really deepen our appreciation and help us connect with the Christians who passed down their faith to us in song as they battle those enemy sparks. Can you count the number of times that you have thanked God for this wonderful gift? and how it can uplift and encourage when you are at your lowest. Scripture often depicts music as having a soothing and calming power. You can see an example of that in 1 Samuel 16:14-23; a distressing spirit of the Lord tormented Saul, and it was only when David played the harp that Saul found peace. 

 

A faith that is tested is a faith that can be trusted. My first experience with the song “Patience People” was at a young age while attending church with one of my mom’s sister’s. My thoughts were struck by the message of that song. The lyrics of this song were based off of James 5:7-9, 11; Be patient, therefore brothers, until the coming of the lord. See how the farmers waits for precious fruit of the earth, being patient with it until it receives the early and late rains. 

 

Not knowing it but the music was dying hollow that day in my heart and I was wondering if God wanted me to hear something that I needed to obey. The problem was that even when I still consided myself a person of God, my worship was fruitless; a worship that had become nothing more than an irritating sound to God:  

 

“Take away from me the noise of your songs; to the melody of your harps, I will not listen.” (Amos 5:23) Worship means so much more than sharing a kind word for a job well done. It means actively bending your knee in submission, praise, and sacrifice to something or someone worthy of your utmost devotion.  Are you devoting yourselves to less than the best that we were created for?   

 

I told you that you would die in your sins, for unless you believe that I am he you will die in your sins.” John 8:24

 

Have you ever been convinced that without a shadow of a doubt that you have trials that have become your enemies; from your negative experiences, your hurts and maybe your addictions? Deriving hardships that most believers have faced. The challenge then is to truly learn how to consider each trial joy. Joy is often presented as “true” contentment based on faith. Happiness, in contrast, is often thought of as “false” or “superficial” emotion dependent on circumstances. 

 

Of course, there are different types of joy and happiness. There is a joy that comes from the world, such as “the fleeting pleasures of sin” spoken of in Hebrews 11:25. There is a joy that is part of the fruit of the Spirit Galatians 5:22. There is a temporary happiness and an eternal happiness, but we can call both “happiness. Do you ever split hairs between the meaning of joy and happiness? Sometimes we just need to decide where our joy comes from. Are we happy in the Lord, or are we content with the enemy of happiness the world affords? So, who are your enemies?

 

Pondering all of this as I read Matthew 5. I thought what enemies were there to love when I had so many. Here I am God standing knee-deep in the deepest valley of my life. Breathing my last ounce of faith, wondering how do I finish this race. You see we muster up the courage to stand but yet in the mist of things we are hit with another building of musical notes without a rest. Can you relate to being out of control, and needing that rest, thinking how can we change the narrative,” perceived back to a reality of contentment”?

 

What does our faith in Jesus Christ mean? Come to me and I will give you rest. What is that rest, “it’s the promise that still stands the promise of salvation through God’s provision—Jesus Christ”. Though we desist in our self-efforts to earn salvation and the promised eternal rest, we also “make every effort to enter that rest” by choosing to depend solely on God, to trust Him implicitly, to yield totally to the promises of God through the free grace of His salvation. Why? So “that no one will fall by following their [the Israelites’] example of disobedience” (Hebrews 4:11). We either trust ourselves to save ourselves, or we trust God to do that for us through the sacrifice of Christ on the cross. 

 

I said to my enemy, “Don’t Stand so close to me original sin”, meaning that we cannot please God on our own. No matter how many “good deeds” we do, we still commit sin, and we still have the problem of a corrupt nature within. We must have Christ; we must be born again (John 3:3). God deals with the effects of original sin in our hearts through the process of sanctification and turn from sin and turn to him who is the forgiver of sins, take a breath/rest to the giver of new life, and the giver of the Holy Spirit. Bend your knee to Jesus and confess him as the true Lord and Savior that he really is.  Make Jesus the object of your worship as you listen to the song, “Patience People”, and you will never run out of power to worship our good God. 

 

However, almost immediately, with the help of the Holy Spirit, the voice of the Lord speaks to our heart that moment, saying “every time you hear those echoes from your enemies that offend or hurt, I will give you rest. We enter into God’s rest by first understanding our total inability to enter God’s rest on our own. Next, we enter God’s rest by our total faith in the sacrifice of Christ and complete obedience to God and His will. We are to enter God’s rest by faith in Him, faith which is a gift from Him by grace (Ephesians 2:8-9). 

 

God Bless You and This Ministry!