23th August 2006- Patience to "Want nothing".

No Consolation Prize
By Kenneth Copeland

Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. James 1:4

I talk a lot about faith. But there's another force that goes along with it that's just as important. It's patience, the ability to stand fast on the Word of God even when your victory seems slow in coming.

Patience is not automatic. It won't go to work unless you let it go to work. So many people don't understand that. They somehow think faith and patience will go to work for them without their help. They just let the devil tear their lives apart and then they say silly things like, "Well, I guess God sent that trial to strengthen my faith."

Don't you ever get caught saying that!

In the first place, James says, "Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God" (James 1:13). And in the second place, that trial isn't going to make your faith stronger. In fact, it'll destroy it if you'll let it.

If I were to give you a set of weights, would that set of weights make you any stronger? No. As a matter of fact, if you dropped one of them on your foot, you could end up painfully weaker. It's what you do with them that counts, right?

Well, the same thing is true when you run into some kind of trying circumstance the devil's brought your way. If you just lay down and let it run over you, it will damage you. But if you'll let patience have her perfect work, if you'll remain consistently constant, trusting in and relying confidently on the Word of God, you'll end up perfect and entire, wanting nothing.

"Wanting nothing." That phrase alone should convince you that patience is no consolation prize. It's a first-rate power that will put the promises of God within your reach. It's a force that will make a winner out of you.

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Scripture Reading (Genesis 26:15-22):

26:15
So all the wells that his father's servants had dug in the time of his father Abraham, the Philistines stopped up, filling them with earth.
26:16
Then Abimelech said to Isaac, "Move away from us; you have become too powerful for us."
26:17
So Isaac moved away from there and encamped in the Valley of Gerar and settled there.
26:18
Isaac reopened the wells that had been dug in the time of his father Abraham, which the Philistines had stopped up after Abraham died, and he gave them the same names his father had given them.
26:19
Isaac's servants dug in the valley and discovered a well of fresh water there.
26:20
But the herdsmen of Gerar quarreled with Isaac's herdsmen and said, "The water is ours!" So he named the well Esek, because they disputed with him.
26:21
Then they dug another well, but they quarreled over that one also; so he named it Sitnah.
26:22
He moved on from there and dug another well, and no one quarreled over it. He named it Rehoboth, saying, "Now the Lord has given us room and we will flourish in the land."
New International Version