Christian Responsibility

     A Christian has a deep responsibility to God and to the world around them. All to often however we forget that responsibility.
The Talmud gives us an example of Abraham
“An aged man, whom Abraham hospitality invited to his tent, refused to join him in prayer to the one spiritual God.  Learning that he was a fire-worshipper.   Abraham drove him from his door.  That night God appeared to Abraham in a vision and said: ‘I have borne with that ignorant man for seventy years: could you not have patiently suffered him one night?”
Abraham in his zeal to honour God forgot for just a moment and failed to show patients to a non-believer.
Love is patient and part of the essence of being a Christian.
The writer of Proverbs states,
“A hot-tempered man stirs up dissension, but a patient man calms a quarrel.”                                                                                                                                              Proverbs 15:18
Paul Writing to the Ephesians states, “ As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.” Ephesians 4:1,2.
As Christians patients is a necessity. We labour in a world that is to say the least very indifferent to us. A world that sometimes frustrates us with its apathy toward God. A world that is quick to judge us but slow to listen to what we have to say.
Christian brothers and sisters labour and witness for years sometimes with little tangible results. Still God calls us to be patient.
Peter in 2 Peter 3:9 states, “The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.”
The essence to being a Christian is to be patient. Proverbs states
“A patient man has great understanding, but a quick-tempered man displays folly.”
                                                                                                                               Proverbs 14:29 
Proverbs 16:32 even states, “ Better a patient man than a warrior, a man who controls his temper than one who takes a city.”
A patient person is quite often a person who listens takes stock of the situation and uses wisdom in the situation he or she has been put in.
All to often we act like a warrior and charge into things not thinking that in doing so we turn people away.
We come across as rude and intolerant to those around us especially none believers.
This I find is especially true when people do things that to us are wrong, or governments pass laws that we as Christians find morally offensive.
Part of the essence of being a Christian is not to be rude.
We must be willing to accept what is going on around us even if we disagree with it.
Reinhold Niebuhr wrote a famous poem the first verse of which is,

God grant me the serenity

to accept the things I cannot change;

courage to change the things I can;

and wisdom to know the difference.

We as Christians need to take heed of the truths spoken in that poem. We need to be at peace with God and the world, accepting the things we cannot change.
Asking God for the courage to change what we can. And above all the wisdom to know the difference.
All to many Christians have made the mistake of trying to change things they can’t change. And have lacked the courage to change things they can.
Think about it.