'How To' Instructions in Righteousness

Lesson 39:
Be patient
Stablish your heart

Key verse:  James 5:8
Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh.
 

Be ye also patient:
 

[Be ye also patient] As the farmer is. In due time, as he expects the return of the rain, so you may anticipate deliverance from your trials. –Barnes

 

[Be ye also patient] Wait for God's deliverance, as ye wait for his bounty in providence. –Clarke
 

Patient-`long-suffering.'  –JFB
 

Be patient-bear your afflictions without murmuring, your injuries without revenge; and, though God should not in any signal manner appear for you immediately, wait for him. The vision is for an appointed time; at the end it will speak, and will not lie; therefore wait for it. It is but a little while, and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry. Let your patience be lengthened out to long suffering;" so the word here used, makrothymesate, signifies. When we have done our work, we have need of patience to stay for our reward. This Christian patience is not a mere yielding to necessity, as the moral patience taught by some philosophers was, but it is a humble acquiescence in the wisdom and will of God, with an eye to a future glorious recompense: Be patient to the coming of the Lord. And because this is a lesson Christians must learn, though ever so hard or difficult to the, it is repeated in v. 8, Be you also patient.  –Matthew Henry

Stablish your hearts:

[Stablish your hearts] Let your purposes and your faith be firm and unwavering. Do not become weary and fretful; but bear with constancy all that is laid upon you, until the time of your deliverance shall come. –Barnes

[Establish your hearts] Take courage; do not sink under your trials.  –Clarke

 "Establish your hearts-let your faith be firm, without wavering, your practice of what is good constant and continued, without tiring, and your resolutions for God and heaven fixed, in spite of all sufferings or temptations." The prosperity of the wicked and the affliction of the righteous have in all ages been a very great trial to the faith of the people of God. David tells us that his feet were almost gone, when he saw the prosperity of the wicked, Ps 73:2-3. Some of those Christians to whom James wrote might probably be in the same tottering condition; and therefore they are called upon to establish their hearts; faith and patience will establish the heart. –Matthew Henry

The many elements of righteousness that we see in this study will mean little if we lack patience and firmness of faith.  We must have unwavering faith in the fact that God is on His own timetable and His timetable is PERFECT.  God is perfect in all His ways and His plan cannot be stopped by anything in the Universe.  Regardless of what happens in the world between now and the return of Christ [and it will get very bad], we must keep our eye on the perfection of Almighty God.
Lesson 39: Instructions –
 
 1) Have long-term patience.
 2) Wait for the deliverance promised to come.
 3) Bear your afflictions without murmuring.
 4) Be in humble agreement to the will and plan of God.
 5) Do not become weary and fretful.
 6) Remain constant.
 7) Let your faith be firm.  Let it be bold.
 8) Do not allow the prosperity of the wicked to effect you.

 See study on Joshua 1:7 - Courage
 See study on 1 Corinthians 15:58 - Stedfastness
 See study on 1 Timothy 6:14 - Remain Fervent

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