(Mark 5:22-24 NIV) Then one of the synagogue rulers, named Jairus, came there. Seeing Jesus, he fell at his feet and pleaded earnestly with him, "My little daughter is dying. Please come and put your hands on her so that she will be healed and live." So Jesus went with him. A large crowd followed and pressed around him.
We have been dealing with Jairus for a few days now and yesterday I focused in on Jairus' declaration of faith. When Jairus spoke faith-filled words - when he said, "Come and put your hands on her so that she will be healed and live" - it caused Jesus to move. Jesus agreed to meet Jairus at the level of his faith and He started out towards Jairus' house. Now, I have already explained how Jairus had to get past what his friends would think, get past the embarrassment of having to come to Jesus in front of the crowd, and speak words of faith, but let me tell you that that was the easy part.
When you have an issue it's not hard to fall on your knees and pray. It might take some humility, but praying is not the hard part. The hard part comes afterwards, in the space between your prayer and the performance, in the space between your confession and the completion, in the space between "I believe I receive, Amen" and "There it is!" That's the challenge, because in the space between the prayer and the performance, the devil will attempt to cause problems. In the space between the confession and the completion the devil will attempt to stir up confusion. It's in that space that we must remain in faith and patient.
I call Faith and Patience "The Power Twins" for the believer. We need both! Abraham waited 25 years for Isaac (his promised child), Joseph waited over 20 years for the manifestation of his dream, Caleb waited 45 years for his mountain, and the list can go on and on. Getting the promise, and getting excited about it, is one thing, but remaining IN FAITH until the manifestation of it is quite something else.
The writer of Hebrews said, "We do not want you to become lazy, but to imitate those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promised" (6:12). The Greek word used for patience here does not mean to simply wait, but means to remain the same while you wait, it can actually be translated as the force of consistency. If you have faith without patience you will get excited about things, you will speak the language of faith, and you will get your hopes up, but you will eventually have a faith-failure because you won't be able to endure long enough to see the manifestation of it.
If you have patience without faith, you will be able to endure, but that's all you will do. You will endure and endure and endure, and suffer and suffer and suffer, and you will never have the faith to move God to change your situation. Faith without patience produces people who get excited but then fizzle out. Patience without faith produces people who suffer and never have any hope of a breakthrough. But as a believer we NEED both! When you couple faith and patience together you get someone who is able to stand in faith and to stand long enough to SEE the manifestation of what they are believing God for! Is that a picture of you? I hope it is.
So what does this mean to you ? It means that you need both faith and patience to receive the promises of God; to experience God's best. We will see that Jairus' situation got much worse (she actually died) before it got better and he required the patience (the force of consistency) to remain in faith long enough to see his little girl resurrected from the dead.
Do you have faith and patience (The Power Twins) operating in your life?
Father, I declare, by faith, that I will not settle for anything less than the manifestation of Your promises in my life. Once I receive a promise in my spirit, either from Your Word or Your voice, I resolve to operate in faith and patience until the promise is a reality in my life. I will not allow the enemy to cause me to change my confession and I will not allow what I see - even if it gets worse before it gets better - to change what I say. The devil has no place in me, no power over me, and no unsettled claims against me. So he can't stifle my faith with suggestions of condemnation. I have been forgiven, I am in faith, I have patience, and I will HOLD ON until I see You best in my life! In Jesus' name. Amen!
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