Powered by Patience - John Humenik Ministry Weekly Podcast
In this livestream sermon, John Humenik exhorts listeners to embrace the biblical virtue of patience as a transformative power for daily life and spiritual growth. He opens with prayer, then explains that patience is the fourth Fruit of the Spirit and a divine gift that shapes how believers manage time, relationships, work, and trials. Using a blend of Scripture (Psalm 90:12, Proverbs, 1 Cor 13, Romans 8, Hebrews 10:36, etc.), biblical narratives (Jesus’ calmness, the Red Sea crossing, Lazarus, Jairus, the woman with the issue of blood), and personal anecdotes (a real‑estate transaction, fitness step goals, parenting, project planning), he illustrates how patience aligns believers with God’s master plan, brings peace, prevents rash decisions, and yields better outcomes. He connects patience to love, perseverance, and the promise of God’s perfect timing, urging listeners to trust God, pray, and “wear” patience like a garment. The sermon concludes with a prayer and a ministry appeal for financial and partnership support to spread the gospel worldwide before the rapture.
Chapters
Good evening, everyone. I hope you're having a great day today. We got an awesome live stream planned for you. We're going to be talking about the power of patience, being able to be powered by patience, and the beautiful gift that it is that God has blessed you and he has blessed me with. It is so incredible that you're here today. I'm excited for a great word. I should be really hoping that you're able to receive this message in a profound way. So let me go ahead and let's open us up in prayer, and that way we can receive the word in an amazing way. So Heavenly Father, for everyone that hears this message under the— under my voice, Father, bless them, open their hearts, allow them to receive the words that you need them to receive. In order to come away with meaningful change in their life. Having a heart of patience is a game-changing way of life, and so allow it to be that next level opportunity for them to rise into the next season that they're entering and glorify you every step of the way. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. So let's go ahead and get started. So the 4th Fruit of the Spirit is patience. It's a powerful, powerful gift that God has given us. And whenever you start to read Bible verses on patience, I get excited because if you know me and if you have— you've spent any time with me, you get to know that I'm a relentless individual. I'm a person with a high-octane engine. I go, go, go. There's no quit. In many ways, I don't get tired. And part of that is, is that I have to be able to settle back into my seat and settle into more of a patient mode. And it's important because patience is what powers people's lives. And we'll get into that, what that really means and how that will really change the way you look at things. Because when you start to power patience into your life, inject it into those life moments, take a moment to just pause. And think. You will be blown away by the power of what patience can do for you. And so patience speaks to my heart. It's a powerful thing that I have learned to grow over time after time. And as we are on this side of eternity, we know that we're never going to reach perfection, but we understand that this gift is so incredible and allows us to really walk in the way that Jesus has called us to walk, because it It is the essence of what Jesus is. So let's dive into that. So one of the things that when you, when you walk into patience, let me start with a story that I think will help resonate with what patience truly is and how it can operate in your life and why it's so important that you develop this wonderful trait. So I remember a conference I went to a long time ago. And part of that conference, there was a really well-to-do business person who had just put together a phenomenal presentation. And he mentioned one thing that stuck with me for a long time, which was that time can't be bought, extended, or even returned. And so that's what he was talking about. And I remember that resonated with me because whenever you lose time, You don't get that back. You don't get those hours and minutes back. Now, obviously, we do have a God that can redeem your time. So let's not kind of COVID that. But, but from the main point is, is that if you squander your time, and you focus on things that you're not supposed to focus on, those moments are gone. They're, they're in the past. They're, as far as we know, there's no time machines. Even Stephen Hawking put out invitations after the fact of an event that he went to, and no one showed up beforehand. So it was a kind of a joke to show that Even time travel doesn't exist. And so what this does is it leads us into our first verse on patience, which talks about Psalms chapter 90, verse 12. And it says, teach us to number our days that we may gain a heart of wisdom. This is so important because as a part of being patient, you have to understand that there is a time and a place for everything. There's a season for all things. When we see in the Bible over and over again, fruit comes in its season. That's a really important thing because a lot of people are driven, like myself, they're driven to just go and go and go and generate fruit in every season. But that's not how trees work. That's not how Christianity works. That's not how God wants you to operate. God wants you to operate in season. Now we know that we can have overlapping seasons and where time becomes very critical, but at the end of the day, you're not going to be generating fruit in a season you're not supposed to be generating fruit. There could be plenty of seasons where you could be isolated and God's refreshing you and he's filling you up, getting you ready, expanding your tent in order to just be able to receive a greater portion in that next season. And that fruit that's in that season is really not going to be that big. So I just want to encourage you that as you're going through your life and you're trying to wrestle with this patience in this go-getter society, that you're not supposed to be generating fruit in every single season, even if that season is short. Because we know that seasons can last minutes, even days or weeks or months. They're not necessarily these 3-month continual sessions that we see, that we, you know, the normal seasons that we have as a part of us being on earth. So what Moses is saying is teach us to number our days because it's important, because we want to be able to take care of the moments that we need to take care of in the moments we have to take care of. There is no rushing. We just know that in this season I have to accomplish this, in this day I have to accomplish that. It's no different than you setting up a schedule, than you setting up an opportunity for you to go look at how you want to organize your week. Whether you're getting your morning coffee before you're going to work, or you're having lunch dates with a friend, or you have dinner planned, whatever that may be— the gym, your church schedule, your social schedule— those things are normal day-to-day things because you're ordering your life. You're— you— you're— God has taught you to number those days. You got 7 days in a week, you got a Sabbath where you're trying to do nothing, and if you're like me, you have to fight for that. Just because you want to keep going. But at the same time, those other 6 days you're going to fill. And, and sometimes you're going to fill that with rest, and sometimes you're going to fill that with exercise. Sometimes you're going to fill that with adventure or book reading or spending time on the computer or catching up on emails. But God is the one who teaches you to number those days, and he teaches us to count them because it's important that we watch our time. We watch the moments of time that we spend because it's important. Every one of those ultimately counts, and they build up over time. And one of the things that I've learned very recently is, is that you do not want to ever be stagnant in your walk with God, because believe it or not, when you're stagnant, you're actually regressing. This is a very powerful revelation. If you catch yourself doing nothing, you're not just staying still. You're actually losing ground. And that's a really important concept to understand in the context of patience. And we'll kind of draw into that and kind of expand on it as we talk. So God knew, okay, that he had to show Moses. And then Moses knew, knew that God could teach him how to number his days and number the time he managed. But it— what you do within those moments is just as important. as actually setting aside that time. No different than saying, well, I went to the gym for 2 hours today. Well, did your body really need 2 hours of working out, or did it actually just need 1 hour and 1 hour of rest? The how is just as important as the what. We don't want to ever get caught in a cycle of overworking ourselves or underworking ourselves. A perfect example is this, this thing where if you have an Apple Watch, or if you have any type of fitness, a Fitbit, or any type of Fitness tracker. One of the big things that the fitness trackers people like to do is get—I want to get my 10,000 steps in today. That's my goal. 10,000 steps day in, day out. That's my goal. Well, guess what? Scientific—and there's a big study that I talked about not too long ago. There's a huge study that talks about that 7,000 steps is the the threshold that you should aim for every single day. 10,000 is. Actually almost 40% more than you need. And what ends up happening is you end up overworking yourself. So unless you're training for an event such as a marathon, in which you would actually do something else, and they're really— and again, I do get there are walkathons, but at the end of the day, putting in those extra 3,000 steps become diminishing returns. They don't really add value because 7,000 is all you need. And what happens is, is that extra 3,000, Ends up costing you time. And so when you start to think about how you're managing your time, starts to drive and get into all the different things that your life is about. And believe it or not, this has a direct line to patience. And so how we manage it, how we manage our time is important because we've gotta prioritize God number one over everyone, including your spouse, including your work. Because remember, God is your provider. He's the one that takes care of your needs and your wants. That's Psalm 23. Remember, you know, the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. Remember, he takes care of your needs. He manages your finances. He manages your wants. He overlooks your family. He protects your relationships, all these things. So you don't have to toil around it. You have to yield that up, put that on the sacrificial altar and give it to him. But we really have to understand that when you put God first and prioritize your time around that, he can fill you up and give you the very thing you need in order to accomplish the day's work. That's why it's so important that the first thing you do when you wake up is spend time with God. Literally, when you open your eyes, that is what you should be doing. You should not be scrolling on your phone. You shouldn't be Even to the point where, like, if you, if you're married and you have your, and you're with your spouse, even rolling over and talking to them, you really should be opening your time up with God, even if it's just 5 minutes. It, trust me, it's a game-changing thing when you're doing that. You can go into your devotional time, you can go into your Bible study after the fact. Spending time with God prioritizes over those things. That's actually the most important thing. Remember what Jesus said to Martha. When Mary was sitting at his feet, the only things were required. He didn't say required reading the Bible. He didn't say required making dinner. He didn't say required doing all these other things. He said what Mary has done shall not be taken from them, and it is the only thing required, which is to get into your prayer closet and spend time with your Father. That's so important because when you start to orient your day that way, it starts to create this structure of time that will immediately and directly affect patience. So you're probably thinking, Well, why, why does managing my time have anything to do with patience? And so it— what it means is, is that when you are managing your time, you are actually being patient with the very things that you're doing. This is so important to understand because when you are patient, you're trusting God. In every moment as you're going throughout your day, that he will order your steps. It's so important. And when you start to study God's patience in the Bible, it is literally the stuff of legends. It's incredible when you start to think about this. You're like, "This is amazing." And so, when you go through this process and start to understand who God really is and how he operates in his kingdom, you start to understand that being patient is not only the— a core principle, it will literally power your life. Patience powers your life. And so let me ask you a question. Have you ever got a chance— if you got a chance to go read the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, you've got the Old Testament pointing to Jesus, you've got, uh, verses after that that point back to Jesus, and Acts, and so on and so forth. But did you ever see in any of the Gospels one time that Jesus ran anywhere? Did he jog anywhere? Was he ever in a rush to get anywhere? Think about this. Think about it from the perspective of the situations that Jesus was put into. Everything from the cross to Lazarus's death to Jairus's daughter to all these other miracles, and which we'll touch base on those today. At what point did he ever rush to go anywhere? He never did. In fact, he walked everywhere. He didn't step into a Lamborghini or a Tesla and go to resurrect Lazarus when he got— when he got sick. In fact, what he did was the exact opposite. He said, oh, I found out Lazarus is sick. Well, guess what? We're just going to chill here for a couple more days. And then at that point, we knew that he then died. And Jesus stayed. But the point of the matter is, is why did Jesus stay knowing that it would take 4 days from the time Lazarus died to the time Jesus would resurrect him later? Why did he wait 4 days? And I always wondered that, like, well, why 4 days? Well, there was a Jewish lore, a myth, that what happened was is that when you were dead for 3 days, that you could never ever be resurrected. That God couldn't do it. He wasn't capable of being able to create and bring back someone back to life. So Jesus went intentionally. He's like, look, my, my, one of my best friends that I grew up with, that I knew for a long time, died. I, I love these people that they're there, all the people in Bethany. And guess what? I'm just gonna wait. I'm gonna chill. I'm gonna hang out for a bit. Imagine that. Imagine that he even waited till after his funeral and burial. Dude's in the tomb. He's literally— we know that after 3 days, that's when the bodies start to decay. That's why Martha said, Lord, when you roll away the tomb, the stone from the tomb, it's going to smell. And Jesus, like, just do it. Let's just listen to me. So his patience was legendary, even in the moments when you thought, my goodness, you want to get there and save him before he dies. Jesus is like, let him die. Not only that, let him bury him. That's fine. I'm still going to pull him out of the tomb. That— it's like almost mind-blowing when you start to think about that. He proved the point over and over again that he had perfect patience, that he walked in the Holy Spirit's power, and whatever the Holy Spirit told him to do, whenever he needed to do it, he did it, because God's timing is perfect. And he doesn't ever have to rush. It's so important to understand that you don't have to be in a rush, even in a situation where you may have screwed up and you're like, "Oh no, I'm behind." You don't have to rush. God's timing is perfect. And think about that: Jesus was always at the right place at the right time because the Father guided every step. He ordered all of his steps. He didn't. He was never out of position. He was always in position to receive as well as to give. So that means that every time Jesus woke up, whether he was in Capernaum, Nazareth, Jerusalem, Jericho, Bethany, it didn't matter where Jesus woke up. Every lunchtime, every single meal, every single encounter that Jesus had in life, he was on time and perfect. He didn't have to rush to any point because he was always there ready to minister or ready to rest. And obviously we see in the Gospels a ton is that he spent a lot of time in his prayer closet with his Father. And if Jesus had to spend a lot of time in the prayer closet, guess what? So do we. Because even as he went to the cross, you saw how much even the disciples couldn't stay awake, but Jesus kept praying over and over again. In fact, he functionally prayed all night. Until he, uh, until the Romans came and get him. You look at even how when he was on the top of the mountain, when he chose the 12 disciples, he prayed the night before, before choosing them. And so this is so important. He even prayed before he walked on water after he fed the 5,000. It's so important. So patience is powering his life and can power ours. And so let's talk about another example, just Another extreme level of patience. And I'll give credit to Jairus too, because here he is, the synagogue leader, and his daughter is sick. And he goes— and we don't know the distance, we definitely know that the time was there. It wasn't like 20-minute walk, like it felt like it was either like a half day or a day or 2-day journey. But there was time that it required for— from Jairus to find, okay, my daughter is sick and she's not going to recover at this point, and now I got to go find Jesus because I believe this. I believe this guy is the Messiah and he can bring her back. And so he finds Jesus after searching him out, and then he gets there. And so he finds him. And so guess what? So Jesus is like, great, let's go back to your house. We're gonna go and, um, I'll take care of her. I'll heal her. She'll be fine. And guess what happens? The woman with the issue of blood. So here now is— here's the situation. So you got Jairus's 12-year-old daughter, and we've got this woman who had the issue of blood. For 12 years. Interesting, you know, interesting biblical numerology there. And so what you have is, is you've got, uh, this situation where the woman of issue with blood is desperate. You've got Jairus, his daughter is dying, he's desperate. So what does Jesus do? He actually gets caught up in the crowd. I wonder intentionally, but you know, that's how God works, right? Everything's intentional. He gets caught up in the crowd, and so she finally has the courage to go touch him and, and touch the, the tassel, the the strings that hung off of his cloak. And if you understand, again, Jewish laws at that time and culture, is you couldn't do that. If you had a teacher there and you went up and touched them, you could make them unclean, and you could actually be punished for that. That's why that moment is so fearful for her. And I know that may not necessarily be easy to get in the reading of the Bible, but it was. It took her great courage to to go up to him and touch him and to be able to receive that healing. But her faith drove her to that point, and then the power came from Jesus. And then he speaks to her, daughter, you're restored, you're healed, your faith has made you well. And so here, okay, remember, you've got this woman with the issue of blood who can't go into the temple, can't worship, can't do sacrifices, okay, because you have to be clean in order to be there. And so more, more than likely, she's been bleeding Uh, either nonstop or very continuously for a very long time, lost all her money to doctors. She's at the end of her rope. Literally, her life as a, as a part of that culture is coming to an end. Contrast Jairus. His daughter is dying on the bed and in fact does die on the way, as Jesus is on the way. So you can imagine that in that moment, Jairus is crushed. The woman is healed. She moves on. And then we actually see later in the gospel that that action empowers other people to do the same. Her courage— because in that, if I remember correctly, that was in John chapter 3, and then John chapter 7. And I, I could be wrong with the, the different books, but what happens is a couple chapters later, her courage spurs on the fact that, hey, if I embrace Jesus with faith, he— I'm going to get healed, in some cases literally. And so That really changed a lot of people's outlooks in their life. And she, she took and seized that moment. But what we see here is, is that when Jairus gets back to the house, Jesus doesn't rush for his daughter. In fact, he's still walking. So he's got this patience. Jairus has patience, which, I mean, as a father, that's such— that's so gut-wrenching in order to experience that. And so here he is, he gets there, and they say his daughter's dead. His daughter's dead. and don't bother the teacher anymore. They got no faith. He can't resurrect her. She's dead. She's not coming back. Never mind, you know, all the things that the Old Testament prophets did where they raised people from the dead by the power of the Holy Spirit. Jairus still is like, no, I have belief. I'm going to be patient. I'm going to trust God because Jesus tells him. And he does. And Jesus kicks them out because they're just a distraction. That's all they are. And because they're religious people, and so they don't understand the spiritual nature because all they can do is see what they see. They can't see the unknown. And so they don't really truly believe it. And we saw that with the Sadducees and all over and over again. Even most of the Pharisees, if not a lot of them, struggled to understand this concept, Nicodemus being one of them. And so Jairus still has the patience to take Jesus up into his place where his daughter is now dead. And Jesus brings the 3 disciples in and they experience this miracle, and Jesus heals them, tells Tells them to feed her because she's going to be hungry and moves on. And so in those moments, in those moments between Lazarus, Jairus's daughter, and the woman with the issue of blood, it would be very normal, very human of anyone to want to rush to help their friends and these people. Clearly, Jesus had the power to do the impossible. There is just— when you understand the, the context of resurrection, the reality is, is that that person, um, that person's soul and/or soul and spirit have left their body. And so really what they are is it's— they're proverbially just a tent. That's all they are is they're just flesh. And so by— only God has the power to command the spirit and soul or the soul to return. No one has that authority. No one has that power. So Jesus trusts his Father implicitly that he can be patient in every moment because he knows it doesn't matter, that time is not a factor in these situations. In fact, when you go back to when we see Ezekiel proclaiming to the dry bones and then they come into an army— and I do get that that was a vision, but even God has the power to take bone and fashion flesh and skin and breathe life into them. That's exactly what he did with Adam. And so what you start to see is, is that the God of the impossible doesn't need to rush. The God of impossible doesn't need us to rush. It, it's something that he has the capability to redeem the time and allow the miracles for so that he can get The glory. And so it's important to understand that whenever you go through situations in your life, that you want to be in the will of God. And when you're in the will of God, there is no such thing as being impatient. There is no such thing as being, uh, struggling with getting things done in a timely manner. There is no toil. There is no angst. There is no anxiety. It's all on God's timing. It's so important to understand that. So let's go into another powerful verse that talks about love and look at it from the context of patience. So 1 Corinthians chapter 13, verses 4 and 5 says, love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it does not— it's not proud, it does not dishonor others, it's not self-seeking, it's not easily angered, it keeps no records of wrongs. So, one of the things that I can— I'll give you a really beautiful testimony. So, a few years ago, it's almost like 3 years now, we had decided to make a move from the north to the south. And we wanted to get away from the weather. And so, what we ended up doing is we put our house on sale. We were really in a hot market. The house prices had really kind of, you know, started to peak, and we were taking advantage of it. But one of the things that happened was, is we got an offer on our house and it took us a while. So we ended up, I think if I remember correctly, we listed our house and we didn't really get an offer on our house for almost 3 weeks. And we ended up doing a contingency on the house. And at the time, if you're not familiar with house contingencies, basically what that means is, is that I'll buy your house when I sell my house. And in a hot market, normally most people don't give contingencies because that holds up the house. For months and months and months with no guarantee of getting addressed. And that's actually what happened to us. We had this initial offer come, and where they were located in their house was really on a main busy road, and their house was actually very close to the street, and it was, it was really just not that great of a location. And so what it did is it lingered on the market longer than it would normally, wouldn't normally linger, even though the house itself was almost brand new. It's like relatively renovated. And so we, we got through this process and we ended up having To, um, just renounce that offer and then relist the house. And it— one of the things that, um, you, you start to realize is, is that there's, there's a timing aspect because we're building a brand new home. And it's again, so we're selling in a hot market, we're building in a hot market, and where we were moving to ultimately became one of the hottest markets in the entire country. So It was very easy to see a house just month over month. And this is not an exaggeration, month over month increase in value, $50,000. It was radical. But what we had, this situation where here we are in this ultimately this impatient situation where we're trying to sell this house and we're building, we need to get under contract. We need to get these big payments because you got to meet your financial obligations to get under contract so that they can start locking your interest rate. And then basically put yourself in a position where you can actually start building the home. Because if you don't, and the longer it lingers, what happens is building costs go up, interest rates will go up. All these things can happen. The market price, all these things get out of whack really fast. And this is what happens to a lot of people. If you've built your home or you've known people that built your home, more times than not, they've only done it once in their lifetime. They never do it again. And after that experience, I can clearly attest that that's, that's the case with us. So Here we are. We're— what we're— what we do is we relist a house, and now all of a sudden, within 3 days, we get an offer. But guess what? They want us out in 33 days. So not only do we have to rush to basically pack everything, because we're packing as we go, but we've got a big family, and so we've got to be able to pack everything we need to pack, and then we've got to get movers, and we've got to do a cross-country move. In time for those people out, and they were, and they were very strict. If I remember correctly, there was the people had been through this process; either were investors or real estate folks or agents, and they just knew the stuff. And it was, it was very challenging, and we had to just basically get through this process as quickly as we could and get out of there. And it was a challenging thing. So here we are; we've got this beautiful story of three weeks, three days. 33 days. You know, I know that the Bible has— I know God has a sense of humor, and he was clearly showing us that he was in control. But in those moments of struggle and fray, this— what he was saying was, is that my timing is perfect. Don't stress. Don't worry about it. I got you. Be patient. It'll all work out. And ultimately it did. And so it worked out great. We were able to get to, um, basically a rental that we were able to get, a short-term rental, and allow us to be able to bridge us till the home got built and all was well. The, the story in and of itself, I probably should write a book on it. It was the, the worst, uh, spiritual warfare in my entire life during those 6 months. Uh, actually, if you count the time leading up to us, closer to 18 months of the year prior to that. But in the end, what God showed is that his timing is perfect. His patience is perfect. If you have God's patience, you trust in the Holy Spirit. You can't look at what's happening in the natural. This is the most important thing for you to understand. You cannot look at what's in the natural and understand what's going on. You have to trust God. You have to have that patience. This is why This livestream is titled Powered by Patience. It's so important when you trust God and you put your patience on that altar and you allow him to work. He will take care of everything in the most clean and organized way as possible, and you don't have to struggle with it. You don't have to add all the pain, all the suffering, all the grief, and it just works out because God is good. And because God is good, he will teach you. Patience and allow you to be very effective in that process. And so, you know, when— as we talk about some new things about patience, where does patience really apply? If you apply patience as a parent towards your children, this is important because as your children are growing up, you've got to give them grace, no different than your Father in Heaven gave you grace. They're going to make mistakes. The thing about children is that they can come into agreement with the evil one and never even know it. In fact, most adults— I would, I would easily argue the vast majority, north of 99.9% of the adults in the world— come into agreement with the devil and never even recognize it, much less having a child who wouldn't even understand those things, saved or not, are going to do those things. So as a parent, being patient with your children is extraordinarily important. Because it really starts to build up a strong relationship that you can now be focused on and grow and allow God to do his thing. That one of the, the most symbolic ways, if you're a visual person and you've done any type of planning, whether you're a project planner, a project manager at work, anyone that's done what I would consider a plan where you have to take resources and order them, you have dependencies. And things like that. That's how God works in our life, is what he's doing is he's a master project planner. What he does is he orders resources— people, technology, money, time, all those things— and each of those things are ordered. They have a start and an end. Some have dependencies. Some can't start until some end. Some can start in the middle. Some have to start together. But think about it from that perspective, from God's perspective. He's ordering your life and all the things that are doing. All those touchpoints, every single place where you can operate. God is ordering your life in a way that allows you to operate. So when you have this master project plan, God's moving you through this, your life. You can't rush things. Like, this is why patience, being powered by patience, it's so important. When God is ordering your life and being powered by patience, you are able to sit back And let the master project planner that is God do what only he can do. And all you have to do is step up and do the work that you need to do only when you do it. And it only has to be in that one season. Remember what we talked about earlier? Fruit comes in its season. If you know anything about strawberries, bananas, cherries, name it, you name it, there's a season for it to grow. I remember my daughter just recently asking me the other day, it's like, why can't I get cherries year round? Well, I said cherries can only grow at basically just at the end of spring and the beginning of summer. That's where— that's how the fruit comes. And so you can only get that at June in the Northern Hemisphere and December in the Southern Hemisphere, because those are the 2 times. And so you'll see, if you get cherries in December, you can only— you'll notice that those growing places are all in South America, because it's their June, and vice versa. So whenever the Northern Hemisphere, whether it's in the United States or elsewhere, when they create, you know, they, they harvest their cherries, they can ship it to the Southern Hemisphere, South America or elsewhere, Africa, it doesn't really matter, Australia, because that's— they can only get it during those times of years. That fruit only comes to bear in its season. God operates like that. That's why patience is so important, because all these things must line up in order for you to do your part. And if you try to rush it, the fruit becomes— you're basically harvesting unripe fruit, and it becomes— you're basically birthing it too early, and, and it no longer becomes, uh, the, the value that it could be had you just waited maybe another day or another week or another month. And so let's look at some more scriptures on how patience can really really change the way you operate in your life. So Proverbs 15:18 says, hot tempers cause arguments, but patience brings peace. So what we start to see here is Solomon is really talking about when you have impatient people or an impatient person being impatient, what happens is, is that can really drive them to be temperamental because they want what they want when they want it, or they just— they're impatient and they're trying to cause trouble. There's a lot of situations here that this impatience can cause, but what he's saying is that when you are patient, you bring peace to a situation. We already know that love is anchored, okay? It's anchored in patience. That's the very first thing it is. In order to love someone, You must be patient with them. If you're not patient with someone, I'm sorry to say this, you're not in love with them. And that's reality. And God calls us to love everyone regardless if they're our enemy or not. He doesn't say to like everyone. In fact, he didn't even say to like anyone. He just said you just need to love them. So if you're not being patient with a person in that moment, you're not bringing peace and you're not truly loving them. Because remember, love is not an emotion. We've already covered that. Love— that's the— the world wants to call love an emotion, but the reality is, is love is patience, love is kind, okay? It's always trusting, it's bearing, it's persevering. It's all those beautiful things. And it's important to recognize that this applies to your children. If you've got a child that is just out of control or constantly trying to bother you and you don't have patience, guess what? You're not truly in love with them. You're just doing it. You're just going through the motions. In fact, a lot of parents just have kids because they think it's exciting, and then once the baby stage passes, or maybe a young kid stage passes, they just lose interest, and they're like, "Oh my gosh! Now I've got this human in my house that I have to feed, and all they're going to do is drive me crazy." Well, that's where patience steps in because patience teaches you that as kids make mistakes, as we talked about earlier, when they come into agreement with the evil one. That you can then work your way through it because your patience will power you into a peaceful state. Ecclesiastes talks about this too. Chapter 7, verses 8: The end of something is better than its beginning. Patience is better than pride. This is really, really powerful. And I, I want to tell you, I want to kind of go off a little bit on a tangent, then I want to come back and explain the deeper meaning to the first half of this verse, what would then— will add value to the second half of this verse. One of the biggest things, the themes that are in the Bible, is, is that God always takes you from faith to faith, glory to glory. There is nothing that was, that was better than it is today. That's just not how the kingdom works. The kingdom always is an upgrade process. As a case in point, look at the temples. The first temple that Solomon built, David pre-built— pre— got pre— he didn't pre-build the temple, but what he did is he pre-built, got all of the packages, got all the materials, trained all the people. He organized everything so that when he died and Solomon took over, Solomon had everything he needed in order to make the temple work. He didn't have to toil for anything. Now, there were other things that he had to continue to collect because I'm sure, you know, there's certain things that you can't just store for years and years and years. But at the end of the day, David prepackaged, you know, inventoried all those things and got things done. It was a magnificent temple. Every rendering was like, oh, that's just gorgeous. Then comes along, okay, of course we know, you know, not too long after that, Nebuchadnezzar comes, clobbers Jerusalem, takes everyone away to Babylon. They're off in modern-day Iraq and near Baghdad today. And guess what? The temple gets leveled. It's gone, it's destroyed, uh, gets burned, it gets— everything's destroyed. It's, you know, to the point where people are like, they're lamenting over it. Fast forward 70 years, Nehemiah comes back, starts rebuilding the temple, and there's people that remember the first temple because remember, 70 years, that's still one long— technically 2 generations, but one long generation could be— they could remember as a youth the original temple in its glory, and then they're rebuilding the new one. But the Second Temple got dwarfed the First Temple, and we see that. We even see that King Herod continued to expand it. And even today, where we see the remnants— although I do believe that that's actually the Roman wall, not necessarily the Second Temple wall. The Wailing Wall, I, I believe, is actually not the right place. I believe it's a little further south, closer to the City of David. But the renderings, either way, you know, the location of the temple— the Second Temple really made the First Temple look obsolete. And then obviously, you know, the Romans came along, you know, 60, I think 67 AD, clobbered that temple to the point where it's, you know, as we can tell, there's not much there left. And so now you have no temple in Jerusalem, but we have all of the beautiful renderings in Ezekiel. If I remember correctly, I think it starts in 38, 39, it runs to 42. And that's the Third Temple, that's the Millennial Temple, that's where— that's You know, that's where the Antichrist, the abomination of desolation, will decree himself as God halfway through the tribulation. And so therefore you have this situation where you got this Third Temple. If you look at the renderings, go online, YouTube it, go look at the Third Temple, and you will see that it is magnificent. It is incredible. It dwarfs the Second Temple. So that there's this theme in the Bible that talks about that every single thing that God does is always greater than the last. And we know because the Third Temple was only a temporary temple. We know that when we see the city of Jerusalem, the New Jerusalem, coming out, out of heaven, we know that it's magnificent. Because if you look at the renderings of its scale, and if it is a literal rendering, which I believe is both symbolic and figurative and literal— I think it's both when you really read it— You'll start to understand that this is a monstrous place. In fact, it's so big that it almost takes up half of the United States length, width, and height. And so the question then becomes, is the New Earth really the size of Jupiter? Like, is that really the case? Because, you know, you're not normally going to have a city that's going to go 1,500 miles in the air and then have most of that be in space. Because remember, the, the— to get to outer space is actually not that much. Like, if I remember correctly, I think they said it's 60 miles and you're totally out of the Earth's atmosphere, even the upper, upper part. And here we are, that would only be a fraction of what this city would be like. So if you're thinking about— and you know the temple's there because God's the temple. So now you're seeing the First Temple, the Second Temple, the Third Temple, and now this fourth and final one. Every single iteration is Better than the last. So Ecclesiastes, let's go back to that verse that says the end of something is better than the beginning. And so now we have this situation where we have this end is now better. And so what it's talking about is, is that patience brings about a better ending than pride. Because pride, we know pride goes before the fall. That's the sin that Satan committed and allowed him to fall. But what we know is that patience is something that allows you to be humble and waiting it out in God's perfect timing in order to receive, that the ending will always exceed the beginning. And so when you think about this in this story, if you're patient and you're waiting for things out and you're waiting for the fruit to come alive in its season, You know that that ending that you're so patiently waiting for is going to be so much more dramatically better than the beginning, no matter how great or how bad that beginning was. It doesn't matter. It's always going to be better. So let's hop into James chapter 5, verse 8. And he talks about— because this is— you go from the Old Testament proverbs to the New Testament proverbs, because James is really considered the Proverbs in the New Testament. And you have this: you also must be patient, keep your hopes high, for the day of the Lord is coming, it's near. And so what you're starting to see is, is that James is talking about the day of the Lord. Remember, he talked about this 2,000 years ago. And I know there's going to be some naysayers from, from time to time. They'll say, well, we've been talking about this for 2,000 years. Well, that's true, but guess what? We're going to keep talking about it. And I'm pretty positive we don't got another 2,000 years left. But the reality is, is tomorrow is not guaranteed for everyone. So even if the end times doesn't come, even if the end times doesn't come in 100 years, the vast majority of the people on the earth today aren't going to see 100 years from now. That's reality. And I know that might be hard, but Tomorrow is not guaranteed. So even if the day of the Lord doesn't come in your lifetime, guess what? You're still going to see the Lord. And so ultimately, you're going to experience him one way or the other. So you must keep your hopes high. You must be impatiently enduring all the things that you're enduring because God is there, and you know that the end, as we talked about before, is going to be better than the beginning. It's important. It really changes the way you think. But patience. Now let's dive into one of the most powerful verses in the entire Bible, uh, relevant, relevant to patience. It's Philippians chapter 4, verses 6 through 7. It says, do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. Then the peace of God, which passes all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds In Christ Jesus. So what does this have to do with patience? Because the key thing is, is that when you're anxious, and if you're an anxious person or you're a worrying person, or you even potentially could have some forms of depression in this, in this state too, it's the fact of the matter is, is that you're looking at the natural and you're stressing about what you're seeing in some way, shape, or form because You can't see the supernatural. You can't see the spiritual, but your Father in heaven can. So what he's saying is, be patient with me, have a hope, trust. Because when you're in those states where you're just overwhelmed with all of those negative emotions and you're just burdened and burdened and burdened and nothing seems to be going your way, God has this beautiful invitation where he says, go And put those requests on the altar. Can you just give them up? Literally quit worrying about them. Just put them on the altar. I'll take care of it. I got this. Don't worry about it. Because when you start to do that, he gives you peace. And we talked about this before in one of the previous live streams, that when you get the peace of God, it is going to just be game-changing. I had a moment today to sit in God's presence for hours today. Yes, one of those things I like to do to prep for these live streams. And when you start to get out of it, what, what happened was, is I, I was in this perfect stillness, this level of humility, quietness, nothing. There was just— there was things I had to do. I didn't even care. I was like, God's like, you can take care of it on Monday. Don't worry about it. You know, you got to do that in a couple days. There was just this peace that just allowed me to just completely Just get into a place of just perfect joy. No stress, no toil, no rushing, no impatience. I was like, wow, this is incredible. And that's the essence of what God does for us, is that when you are powered by God's patience, God replaces all of those stresses— the anxiety, the pain, the suffering, the toil, the work— all. He replaces it with his peace. He replaces it with his patience, because you know He's going to do what he said. When you look at all the promises in the Bible, when you— when people start to trust God, you start to realize that God's timing is perfect. We talked about that master project planner. He's lining all these things up for you, so you just need to let him do those things in their season so that you can either receive or do your part in your season. And that's it. That's what— and if you look at how Jesus ran his ministry, That's all he ever did was manage his ministry like that. He knew he had to wait till he was 30 to reveal his ministry. He knew that the wedding of Cana would kickstart it. He knew that he had to start to go in order and get his disciples and bring them up and bring other disciples. And we know that other disciples like Mark and probably Luke and all these other ones came along the way, but he needed the 12, and he needed to, to guide those 12. And as you know, if you read the Bible and you start to understand that, you know, Peter was impatient, he was a hothead, he was aggressive, um, he was, he was bold and audacious, and he did things that others didn't. And we knew Thomas needed to see things. We, we have these moments that we call him the Doubting Thomas, but we know That, that changed after the resurrection. Like, you have all these flaws in these people that God's entrusting with his gospel to spread it across the world. Look at Saul of Tarsus, of all people, a murderer murdering Christians because he, you know, Jews that are converted to Christianity that now are— he's just slaughtering them in droves. He's hunting them down in other cities. He's getting functionally arrest warrants and going all over the place. Could you imagine if something like that happened today in the United States or in your country? It'd be crazy. You could even— depending on your situation, the people might even revolt or they'll run. And so, but yet God was patient until, uh, Saul, then named Paul, got on that road to Damascus and boom, changed his life forever. He could have converted You know, worked and revealed himself and then thus converted Saul to Paul earlier. But he needed to work things out in those times to allow his perfect plan to come into place. And this is where we get into Romans chapter 12, verse 12. It says, rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. This is really important because Tribulation, a storm, a spiritual battle, any of those things what you're dealing with. There is nothing greater where patience is needed other in those moments. The reality is, is one can argue if you're having you're having a great season, you're in a point where you know maybe you've crested all these troubles, you've overcome the potholes, and you're in cruise control in this season. One can argue patience. You could say, "Oh yeah, great! You have patience because nothing's like there's no turbulence." But when you have the turbulence and you have the storm, you have that hurricane, you have that tornado, you have the stresses of bills being due, or you have the stresses of someone being sick, maybe in a hospital bed, maybe time's running out. All of these things. Maybe a relationship's on the rocks, or your work is on the rocks, or worse, you're struggling at school and you might get kicked out, or you're having all these problems. There's so many things. That can stack up in those tribulations. It's so important to have patience in those moments because God's working it out. He's walking with you. It says in scripture that the Holy Spirit intercedes on our behalf. Okay, picture the Holy Spirit taking your right hand. It also says Jesus intercedes as our high priest On our behalf. He takes our left hand. Everywhere you go, it doesn't matter if it's a sunny day, it doesn't matter if it's stormy weather, you know you got the Holy Spirit on one side and Jesus on the other. You have 2 persons of the Trinity walking you through life. So at that point, we already talked about that Jesus never had to rush anywhere. Jesus never had to go anywhere and toil. And we already know the Holy Spirit and the power he has and to be able to institute, institute change. and to execute on God's will, the reality is, is why would you not be patient? You cannot look at the natural and understand what's going on because God is operating in the super, in the spiritual. And when you look at what he's doing as that master planner and you can see those things happening, all you have to do is be patient and let it work itself out. Because you can rejoice in those moments, you can have hope in those moments, you can have trust in those moments. Because he doesn't know how to fail. That's who God is. That's who God is in our life, and that's how he operates. We look at Psalm 40, verse 1. It says, I waited patiently for the Lord. He inclined to me and heard my cry. Now what's interesting about that is, is that he doesn't say that, um, he answered his prayers in this verse. We know that God answers his prayers, but what it says is that he inclined to me and heard me cry. Now, this is really important because a lot of people believe that you have to pray to get a connection with God. And as my brother David Hernandez says, you don't pray to get a connection, you pray from a connection. And so when you wait patiently for the Lord for those moments, he will incline his ear, he will hear you, and then he will go into action. But you may not receive what you've prayed for in that moment. Obviously, we've seen it. I've seen miraculous healings happen like that, happen in a moment's notice. But I've also seen healings that happen 24 hours later. I've seen healings happen later. And so would you always wonder, you're like, well, what is going on? But the reality is, is it goes back to this master planner working things out. Think of it like when you see this vision, if you've ever seen someone making clay pots And you've got this person who's spinning on a wheel. And if you're, if you're an older person like myself, which I'm not old by any means, stretch the imagination, I'm relatively young. And you start to remember the, the one movie Ghost, where you have Demi Moore working the clay, and you have Patrick Swayze coming up behind her. And so you could picture God, you know, transpose it. Now God is working the clay, and we're the clay, and he keeps working it and working it. The reason why the clay master works the clay the way that he or she does is to get the impurities out. They're not trying to rush their artwork because they know that if they— the moment they put it in the fire, it's going to crack and it's going to be ruined. God's like that, and we're like that. So think about it. As God is working you out, you're in your storm, you're in your tribulation, he's refining you, shaving off all the things the world has tried to put on you, the lies that you've come into agreement with, the strongholds, the chains he needs to break off. He can't stop refining you in that moment until you're purified enough to handle the fire. That is really important, because when you start to understand and be patient in those moments where God needs to refine you Then you can understand why it's so important that when you're thrust into the fire, excuse me, you'll be ready for it. You'll be ready for it, and that's so important. So let's flop over to Proverbs chapter 14, verse 29. It says, whoever is slow to anger. Has great understanding, but he who has a hasty temper exalts folly. So one of the key aspects that Solomon is trying to teach us here is when you are patient with people, you understand things that other people don't. Because when you're hasty and you're angry It becomes this me now. This becomes I want it. It becomes this self-gratifying individual or situation where it's you know you want it now, and you see this happening a lot of places in our society. Very specifically in business, the stock market. People are so impatient with investments; they always want a yield to return a quarter of a quarter. We wanted to grow. We have targets we have to hit. We have these. Things we're going to do because we're going to sell and move on. We're just going to— we have to move these pieces and parts because if we don't get this much gain, then we can't take this and move it over there and be able to grow here and attack that area and invest. And what ends up happening is the investors, the business people that are very patient and know when to act— remember, patience does not prevent you from acting. It does not prevent you from doing. What patience does is that you have great understanding when to act. Remember, it's a seasonal thing. You are jumping into action when you have to, and you're not being hasty because you're impatient or you have a temper, because what ends up happening is you're ultimately going to make a mistake. And this is so important because it will operate in every aspect of your life. If you take a patient attitude with your children through their grades, a perfect example is looking at children and saying, well, I want them to have straight A's this year and every year after. Well, the reality is, is most kids, and I'll be honest with you, most kids can't do that. In fact, many kids may not ever get to that point. But what they can do, as we talked about the temples, is one year after the other, get better and start to improve. Maybe they start out as 2.0. Maybe they go to 2.5, maybe they go to 2.7, to 3.0, to 3.5, maybe to 3.7. But if you take a patient approach to where they're at, when you need them to peak, they will peak. Because remember, it's no different if your children is in sports, if you have kids that are struggling through school, or even with yourself. You're not trying to focus in this season for perfection. That's just not possible. What you're trying to accomplish is be able to do it year over year, season over season. And when you understand that, then you understand great understanding, because the, the reality is, is a lot of people peak mentally much later in life. It's not uncommon for people to be 25, 30, 40, and older before they actually hit their mental capacity where they're actually able to accomplish a ton of things. But a lot of parents want to push people, and that's the same way with even workers. We can apply that to workers where you want workers to come in and be effective within 30 days, maybe even sooner. And if they're not happy within 90 or 60, you know, 90 days later, or even 6 months later, or even a year, they just, you know, move on and get someone else. But then they forget the fact that they're all this tribal knowledge, all this inherent knowledge that they learned that can't be taught because you have to experience it is now lost and you have to start over. And that's very costly. And so when you have this great level of patience, what you always are looking towards is the future. You're never looking at the present because the present is not indicative of much at all. In fact, it's only representative of what you can see. And remember we talked about you can only see so much. It doesn't matter the depth of wisdom you have or knowledge or understanding. And we know Solomon had legendary level stuff, but even still he made his fair share of mistakes. And so we have to understand, like, the words that he's talking about come from experience, the things that he did and that what he endured. But let's hop over to Romans chapter 8. I love Romans chapter 8. One of the great verses In this chapter, it says, "But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience." Now, Paul, this is the penultimate book in Paul. If I remember correctly, I think Second Timothy might have been one that came after this. But either way, the reality is is Romans is Paul's masterpiece. This is the one thing that Paul hangs his hat on from the perspective of like doctrine and understanding. And we all know relatively, you know, I think there's a general consensus that. Paul probably wrote Hebrews, but I always believe that Paul wrote Hebrews with Luke and/or his group because it talks about that group. And I think that's why that in that letter it was never titled with Paul, because I think it was a combination because it was more eloquent. But Romans is an incredible, incredible letter, and chapter 8 is just a next level writing because it has so much power packed in just what I think, if I remember correctly, is like 38 verses. But what we see here is Paul is talking about hoping for something we can't see. So let's say, for example, you have, um, you know, you're, you're waiting for graduation. Maybe you're a young adult in college, maybe a teenager in high school, and you're going through this rough situation, and you're— you know, this graduation date's coming up. Maybe it's 6 months away, maybe it's a couple years away. But what you know is that it's there, but you can't see it because you don't have your cap and gown. You don't got your diploma. You're walking it out. Maybe you're going for a master's or a PhD, maybe going back for a second degree, changing your career. When you wait for those moments with patience, what you're doing is you're positioning yourself properly in order for you to receive what you're supposed to receive in that season. This is the thing that impatience doesn't tell you. This is where this mistake costs you, because you're trying to receive something now that you're supposed to receive later. And the thing you need to receive now, you can't see it, and therefore you can't receive it. So this is what Paul's talking about, is, is that you're, you're looking forward to something and you're hoping for it. But what you're doing is, is you're going to be in a posture of receiving so that God can give you what you need. Because there may be something you need right now, maybe some additional intelligence, maybe the ability to study. Maybe he needs to unlock something that allows you to then ultimately put you into position to get that diploma. This can apply to so many walks of life, and that's the essence of what impatience robs you. This is where the lie of evil one tries to trip you up, because what they're trying to do is get you to receive something out of season in order for that— what you need to receive in season, you can't, because you're looking one way and you should be looking this way. That's, that's what the enemy can do. So let's hop over to a perfect example of where this applies, and that is Exodus 14:14. And so this is probably one of the—I would absolutely say one of the scariest moments in the Bible for Moses and and or anyone, to be honest with you. Here we have a situation where Moses has led the Israelites out of Egypt, right? Egypt is the world's probably the world's first superpower. I mean, there might have been others, but none of them are documented. And you know, Nimrod potentially could have been one, but again, he he was a city builder. And talked about him being a mighty warrior, but not, not here nor there. But so here we have the, the nascent city, nascent nation of Israel coming out. You've got about a million or so folks, tons of women and children, tons of cattle. None of them are warriors, right? Like, none of them are warriors. They're just people, farmers basically, and shepherds. And so they're leaving Egypt, and you've got this great army in hot pursuit. Not only that, God tells Moses to go ahead and circle around the desert to make it look like you guys are confused, and so that'll incentivize Pharaoh to attack you even more. And then he buttresses them up against the Red Sea. And so now you've got this million people. Now, if you've ever been to a concert or a football stadium, uh, or anything where you have a million people in that location, let me tell you something. Besides feeding them, watering them, it's not easy to move. No. There's just so much going on there. The space, the time, it legitimately takes effort to move that many people. And so now you've got this massive army bearing down on them. You've got the Red Sea pinning them. They're literally stuck. And all you got is the, the column of fire that separates the two. And so Moses hears this from God, says, I will fight for you. All you need to do is be still. Talk about patience. You mean this is the— if there's a moment in the Bible that sheer panic should go, every man for himself, every woman and child for themselves, this is it. I mean, you should see people jumping into the sea to get away from the chariots, like all kinds of stuff. And the reality is, is God's like, no, you need to be patient. I'll take care of this for you. And then ultimately we know that, you know, he tells Moses to go and split the Red Sea, and then they walk across on dry land. The, the fire tower disappears, the Egyptians follow, and then by the time the last Israelite crosses over on the other side, the waters collapse and all the Egyptians die. And so the sheer level of patience that it requires to be able to survive that situation is incredible, and it really is game-changing in how you operate. Your life, and so Galatians takes us to a next level. Galatians chapter six verse nine talks about let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. And I and if you start to think about all the things we talked about today and all the different things, the season, the master planning, and all these things is that God is calling you in this moment in your life to do good. He wants you to sow seeds that are good. Because remember, every single seed you sow, that's the harvest you're going to reap. If you sow impatience, you're going to reap impatience. If you sow mercy, you'll receive mercy. If you receive— if you sow ungratefulness, if someone wants to come and bless you and give you money but you reject them, you've just taken a blessing away that God wanted you to receive. Because remember, it says in the Bible that I take the rich, pile up wealth, and only for me to give it to my children. So if you're ungrateful from receiving something from someone because you can't receive it, then you will continuously be in a position where you can't receive anything. And so the moment you're like, well, I want my raise, or I want to be able to, to do something for myself, God's not going to bless you because he wanted to bless you over there, which would have then led to this blessing over here. And there's— and you may not realize it, but all those things God Weaves this beautiful story that's all interconnected because there—that's what you need. And so that's what Galatians is saying: In this moment, don't become weary in doing good. Don't become impatient. Don't become rushed. Don't become in a situation where you're like, "Oh man, I really want to move on and get going in my life." No, God's like, "No, keep the hand on the plow." Keep doing what you're doing. Keep going in the direction I've told you to go, because when it's ready, you're going to reap a harvest. And guess what? That harvest is going to be bountiful because you've waited for the fullness of the harvest. You're not going to get it early where you're going to get a partial harvest. It's not going to be birthed early. It's going to be ripe fruit and it's going to be bountiful. And it's important to understand that because that applies with all those things. You want to joyfully serve the Lord in the hallway as well as in the room. And so that's really important. And so what you start to see is, is that God talks about patience as a garment. We talked about that before with love and other, other aspects of the fruit of the Spirit. But Colossians talks about this in chapter 3, verse 12. It says, therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, Gentleness and patience. If you're a patient person, people are going to know that because you wear it. That, that's no different than when you see someone dressed up in a golf shirt, a suit, a dress. It doesn't matter what they're wearing, you know that's who they are because of what they're wearing. You could see it. It doesn't necessarily— may not necessarily match their personality, but that's who they are. That's what they're wearing. And these things are like that. Patience is worn like a suit. It's worn like a dress. You're like, oh, this is a patient person. This is a person who perseveres. This is a patient— this is a person who is willing to trust and hope, who's willing to either rest in a season when they're supposed to rest or work in a season when they're supposed to work. Because remember, a farmer doesn't work in every season. The farmer only works when that He or she has to. There's off-seasons where they don't work and the yield, the harvest is theirs and they're enjoying the harvest. That's the point. When you are wearing patience, when you are sowing patience, when you are doing, becoming, and believing to be a patient person, people know that and it stands out. It's so important and powerful. So Romans 15:5 talks about this further. May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you the same attitude of mind towards each other that Christ Jesus had. This is so powerful because he uses endurance and encouragement in the context of patience. And you must have this attitude towards others because remember, even if you're a mature Christian, at one point you weren't. If you're a new Christian, you're, you're, you're also beholden to people, the elders who are much more mature than you. If you're new to this Christ thing, you're like, who is this Jesus guy? Uh, that patience is important because you have to understand how much he loves you and what he went for through for you to bring you to everlasting salvation. Patience gives you the endurance. It powers you to give the endurance and give you encouragement that the days ahead will always be better than the last. That doesn't mean you're not going to be in dealing with epic storms, but every single storm comes to an end. Even the great eye of Jupiter is going to come to an end. It started and it's going to come to end. Even if it comes at the end, at the end of time, when the new— when the Great White Throne Judgment comes, it's going to end. And so every single storm, every single hurricane— because I'm down in the South and hurricanes are a thing— we know that hurricanes form in season and then they dissipate. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter because what they do is they literally wear themselves out. Even as they move north, what they do is they hit land and they dissipate because they don't have the moisture. Or if they go further north into the Atlantic, or if you're over in the West Coast, you've got the typhoons and the cyclones. At the end of the day, every storm will literally work itself to death. So what God is saying through Paul in Romans Is I'm going to give you endurance so you don't work yourself to death, and I'm going to give you encouragement because I want to give you a hope that what you're doing now will be a huge benefit later. And then you want to have that towards every single person you encounter, because you know that that person may accelerate or grow slowly, but you know that season over season, year over year, decade over decade, they will always improve as long as they are focused on God. It's no different than whenever you're with a sports team. I've coached sports teams in the past. Where you have kids and you could film them day one, first day of practice, especially when they know each other. You have some people that are, you know, being able to play together, and all of a sudden you watch them over a course of a year. If you can film the first game and the last game, I can guarantee without a doubt, as long as they have put themselves and applied themselves in practice, and even if they hadn't and they still— and they've done some things, you're going to notice either a slight or a stark improvement in their play because you're patient. You know that season over season they get better. Some kids will accelerate and blow other kids away. Some kids will improve over time. I have a great story with this. Like, my oldest daughter played soccer, and I remember that first season she was 6 years old. All she could do was cry. You know, that's all she— she didn't want to be there. She wanted to go out and be a princess and have, you know, have tons of fun. And then 10 years later, in her last game, she's in a tournament. Remember, this is a little girl who's small, played defense, never could play offense, upgraded herself over time, led her team in the championship game, but with the 2 goals, won the championship, basically getting the MVP. It was her first and only championship. It took her 10 years to mature and reach that point. And she went out on top, you know, the way every single sports person wants to do. Patience. Because you just don't know where someone will be in 5 years, in 10 years. And remember, God's plan is eternal. Even if we live, even if we all live to 120, God's like, I'm going to map out those 120 years, and that first year of life is going to be the stepping stone, but the last year of life is going to be the best. That's how God operates. And then I'm going to leave everyone and close out this livestream with this verse, Hebrews 10:36. You need to persevere. Notice that word need, so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised. The whole point in patience is that it ties to perseverance. And being patient knows that when you're waiting for God's promises, That you know that as long as you have stayed in his will and you allowed him to order your steps, that he will do what he said he did when Jesus was here on earth. Okay, he said 2 things. He said, I have— I, I am preparing a place for you, and I will come back to you when you— when it's ready. And store up treasure in heaven where moth and thieves can't destroy. Or steal it. This is the essence of what God is saying, is that in this life, it's a life of patience. We Christians know this is the closest we'll ever be to hell. We know that because our destiny is eternity, so that everything we're enduring today, we know this is as worst as it's going to get. But we know that each season it gets better. But even still, it pales in comparison to heaven. So we know that if we run the race As Paul talked about, if I run the race and I've finished it, I've done the fight, I've fought it well, that there will be a reward. And you will receive what God has promised you, and it'll be eternal, and it can never be taken away. Just look at the story of Joseph. He had 3 coats. He had the coat of many colors from his father because he was supposed to rule his father's house. His brothers took that away. He then got the cloak Of Potiphar. And then Potiphar's wife said, hey, hey, good-looking, come over here. Took his cloak off. He wasn't supposed to rule Potiphar's house either. But when then the king, the Pharaoh, gave him the cloak, no one can take that away. That's the same here. Be patient. Let God do what God does. Sit in your prayer closet. Be focused on the season at hand. See what you're supposed to receive. See what you're supposed to do. In these moments, let God be God. Let him work all these other things out. And then in the future, whatever that may be— that could be 5 minutes or 5 years— God will make it happen, and you will receive everything he has promised you. So let me go ahead and close out in prayer for those, um, here. Uh, thank you, Father, for everyone that's under my voice that hears this wonderful message. I want you to bless them and receive it fully. So that they understand that you are the master planner. You are the one that orders their steps, that when you tell them to go, they can go. When you tell them to rest, they can rest. That they can put their burdens on the sacrificial altar and allow you to be God and allow them to participate in the things that you ask them to participate. They don't have to toil. They don't have to stress. You've got it worked out. You just got to trust them to do the things they need to do. And they have to trust themselves to do it too. We pray that we learn this and understand it and apply that in every part of our life and allow us to wear patience like a garment so that we can be powered by it in every moment of our life. In Jesus' name I pray, amen. So thank you for joining me in this livestream. I wanted to make share that we have a very bold vision here at John Humenik Ministries. Our vision is to spread the gospel to every person across the world before the Rapture. And we want monthly partners that are willing to help and step in and guide and support us, uh, either through partnerships and/or financial. So if you— would you prayerfully consider becoming a monthly partner with us, whether it's a one-time donation, whether it's some form of business partnership, or a monthly gift that you will give to the ministry? Every single thing you donate goes back into the ministry so that we can purchase more equipment, hire more people, and just spread and create more programs and spread the gospel to every person on the planet before the rapture. Thank you for joining us, and God bless and have an amazing, amazing day ahead. And allow God to power your patience, because trust me, when you get into that state You will— it will transform every single thing you do. God bless.
