Col 3:12-13
Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering; forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye.
"One moment of patience may ward off a great disaster; one moment of impatience may ruin a whole life." - Bits & Pieces
Beloved, I thank God for the very fact that God's love toward us is unconditional. Were it not for this reality in God, we would have long ago forfeited the privilege of His matchless love. Too often in our dealings with one another we fail to remember the lengths that God has had to go on our behalf to present us unto himself blameless and without blemish. The price was no less than the blood of His Son Jesus.
In order to love like our heavenly Father the Holy Spirit must teach us what I refer to as the ministry of forbearance. The word forbearance is a legal term which literally means, to refrain from the enforcement of something (as a debt, right or obligation). It means to hold back with an effort of self-restraint. Forbearance is also the quality of being patient or lenient with another person. I believe that this ministry is very much lacking among us.
We are too often given to holding one another's feet to the fire of incrimination and judgment without concern for a brother or sister's need for edification. There are times when God will use you to win a brother or sister back to the faith who has fallen away. He will often do this by encouraging you to minister to them in a spirit of forbearance. If the truth were told some of the people whom the body of Christ has lost to the world, were lost due to the intolerance of the saints.
Forbearance does not mean sharing in the sinful practices or ways of another. But, it does mean always striving to give another person the benefit of the doubt and therefore not adjudging them prematurely. The Apostle Paul says it this way, "Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted. Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ."(Ga 6:1-2).
