Category Archives: Scripture

Patience Measured in Years

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I was reading in Hebrews 6 this morning, noting its exhortations to be diligent in faith and patience….

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9 Though we speak in this way, yet in your case, beloved, we feel sure of better things—things that belong to salvation. 10 For God is not unjust so as to overlook a your work and the love that you have shown for his name in serving the saints, as you still do. 11 And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness to have the full assurance of hope until the end, 12 so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.

13 For when God made a promise to Abraham, since he had no one greater by whom to swear, he swore by himself, 14 saying, “Surely I will bless you and multiply you.” 15 And thus Abraham, having patiently waited, obtained the promise. [emphasis added to esv]

Little did I remember (until spotting the ESVSB notes) that old Abraham waited 25 years for the promise about a son to be fulfilled (cf. Gen. 12:4 & 21:5). Twenty-five YEARS.

How grossly impatient we appear in light of this!
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Manton: Get & keep the Word in your Heart

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If you are to store up God’s word in you heart (Psalm 119:11), what must you be careful to do? Puritan Thomas Manton speaks plainly about two vital steps to take:

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Oh, therefore, let us get it into our hearts; let it not only move the lighter part of the soul, bet get rooting, that it may have its full power and force. That we may not only have alittle knowledge to talk of it, but we are to hide it deeply, that it may take root, and spring up again in lur lives and conversations. To this end meditate often of it, and receive it in the love of it.

(1) MEDITATE OFTEN ON IT. ‘Mary kept all these sayings…’ How did she keep them? ‘She pondered them in her heart’ (Lk 2:19)….

(2) RECEIVE AND LOVE THE WORD. The Apostle makes this to be the ground of apostasy, ‘Because they received not the truth in the love of it…’ (2 Thess. 2:10). Oh let it soak into the affections; if it only lie in the tongue, or in the mind only, to make it a matter of talk and speculation, it will be soon gone.

Help us, Lord, to purposefully ponder and love the Word.
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