28th June 2021
MERCIFUL ENDURANCE
David Abankwah
READ: 2 Peter 3:9
Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good! For His MERCY ENDURES forever.
-1 Chronicles 16:34 | NKJV
Endurance is the ability to do something difficult for a long time; the ability to deal with pain or suffering that continues for a long time or the quality of continuing for a long time. Endurance is a trait every believer needs to adopt. God expects a level of endurance from His people because He is a God of endurance. The reason God is not swift in dealing with the sinner is that He doesn’t want the sinner to die in His sin but He is patient enough to wait for a long time with the expectation that the sinner will repent. That period of patience is not easier to be in at all. Sometimes it is very abhorring to wait for a very long time when something bad is happening around you.
The truth of the matter is that no one wants to be in crisis for a very long time. We often seek solutions to our problems. God is not like man. He knows that for every sin man does against Him, His love for man will never be quenched. The endurance of God started in the Garden of Eden. God told man that the day that He would eat from the forbidden tree of good and evil, he would die. Even though when man disobeyed God, he died spiritually but the physical death took place when Cain killed his brother Abel, many years later. The mercy of God was sufficient for man that He gave man grace period to repent from his sins.
The other side of mercy is wrath. After God gave man so many grace periods to change and man was still unwilling, He told Noah to make an ark. For His wrath to come, it took 120 years of preaching by Noah to the people for them to have a change of mind, but man went on to sin. Despite all the warnings of repentance like it is happening today on our radio stations, television stations, through the social media platforms, crusades, personal evangelism, and what have you, man still overlooks the endurance of God. Many men think that, as far as grace period persists, he is allowed to do whatever he wants. You are someone’s temple (1 Corinthians 3:16). You don’t own yourself.
After all the years of endurance, God finally destroyed the whole earth with a flood. Endurance of God was also seen 2000 years later when a city called Sodom and Gomorrah arose in sin and iniquity. It was because of merciful endurance that He waited for so long without punishing the people. The mercy of God truly endures, but the day His mercy elapses, man cannot stand His wrath. It is because of the wrath of God that I continue to sound the warning bells of the Gospel so everyone who hears this message should repent from his sins and reconcile to Jesus Christ.
•| Prayer Diary |•
¹Lift up prayers against the complacency of salvation that makes you overlook or take the merciful endurance of God for granted. ²Lift up prayers for repentance and conversion from every sin and iniquity so you can be reconciled to God before the wrath of God consumes you in the name of Jesus Christ.
Quote
“No pain no gain as many say, so one cannot also be a merciful person without endurance”
One-Year Bible Reading Plan
Psalms Chapters 134-140
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© 2021 David Abankwah
David Abankwah 