Patience

“The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.” (2 Peter 3:9 ESV)

God knew the end before the beginning. Imagine you knew the end before the beginning. Could you stand it? I mean knowing what trials, what happiness, what heartbreak was coming, and how it would end before it started.

A glimpse of God's patience is revealed in Exodus 34:6-7, where He describes Himself to Moses. "The Lord, the Lord, a God of mercy and grace, slow to anger, and overflowing with steadfast love and faithfulness, maintaining His love for thousands, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin, yet not clearing the guilty.'" Have you ever pondered the depth of God's patience?

If God were to give us what we truly deserve right here and now, we would be in hell. But God is patient with His children. This patience does not extend to everyone, as we read in 34:7. So therein lies what I like to call the divine dilemma. If God will not “clear” the guilty, how does He restore the wicked? Because, as we read in Proverbs 17:5, “He who justifies the wicked and he who condemns the righteous are both alike an abomination to the Lord.” So, how does God do it? How does God maintain patience and love, clearing the wicked without being an abomination?

God can do whatever He wants; God is not like us. In knowing the beginning before the end, God also knows His elect. We are not elected because God knew we would eventually believe; He elected us, period. We were selected by God with no criteria, and while WE may not have known we would believe in God, we were predestined as God’s before time. A pretty amazing prospect, right?

So, that still leaves the question. How does God justify the wicked without being an abomination? Through the blood of the New Covenant, the blood of Christ; that is how He does it. It is done through Christ's atoning sacrifice, His propitiation. Christ, through penal substitution, satisfied God’s wrath against our sins. Christ drank the cup, the cup in the garden that contained the wrath of God, Christ drank it. He suffered, died, and was resurrected so that we who believe could be made righteous before God. We were given the righteousness of Christ. It was bestowed upon us by God legally, and it is binding. We are bound to Christ in death and in new life. All this is done through faith alone, by grace alone, through Christ alone, in scripture alone, all for the glory of God alone. You were God's before time, and you were elected to glorify Him.

Praise God for His patience, for without it, it would be a very dark, painful, hot existence, and I do not like any of the above.

Grace and Peace!