The Patience of God is His long-suffering mercy toward sinners while the day of judgment is still delayed.
The Lord is not slow to fulfill His promise as some count slowness. He is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.
His patience is not weakness and not forgetfulness.
It is space given for turning, held in place by the same word that will one day bring the fire.
When scoffers asked where the promise of His coming had gone, Peter answered with the character of God. With the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The delay that looks like slowness to man is patience in God. He does not wish that any should perish. He waits that people may repent.
That same patience is named throughout Scripture. The Lord passed before Moses and proclaimed Himself merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love. The prophets called Israel to count the Lord’s slowness as salvation.
Paul asked whether men presumed on the riches of His kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead them to repentance. He said that he himself received mercy so that Jesus Christ might display His perfect patience as an example for those who would believe.
The patience of God is therefore a present gift and a coming limit. The day of the Lord will come like a thief. Until it comes, the door of repentance stands open because God is patient.
- God’s patience explains the delay of judgment, not the denial of judgment.
- He is not slow as men count slowness; He is long-suffering so that people may repent.
- Kindness, forbearance, and patience are meant to lead to repentance, not to presumption.
- The same word that made the world and flooded the world now stores up the present order for fire.
- Christ’s perfect patience toward Paul is a pattern of hope for other sinners.
- Slow to anger is one of the Lord’s own names for Himself.
- Patience in God calls for patience and holiness in His people while they wait.
- Slow to Anger – The Lord’s own proclamation of His name.
- Not Wishing Any to Perish – Patience aimed at repentance and life.
- Kindness That Leads – Forbearance is a road, not a hiding place.
- Held by His Word – The delay is under command, not out of control.
- Displayed in Christ – Perfect patience shown in the saving of the worst of sinners.
- Limited by the Day – The thief comes; the patience of God is not endless delay.
- Call to Wait Well – Those who receive His patience live holy and godly lives.
- 2 Peter 3:8-10 – “But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief…”
- 2 Peter 3:15 – “And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him.”
- Romans 2:4 – “Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?”
- Exodus 34:6-7 – “The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, ‘The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty…’”
- Numbers 14:18 – “The Lord is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, forgiving iniquity and transgression, but he will by no means clear the guilty…”
- Psalm 86:15 – “But you, O Lord, are a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.”
- Psalm 103:8-10 – “The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. He will not always chide, nor will he keep his anger forever. He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities.”
- Joel 2:13 – “Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love; and he relents over disaster.”
- Jonah 4:2 – “I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster.”
- Nahum 1:3 – “The Lord is slow to anger and great in power, and the Lord will by no means clear the guilty.”
- 1 Timothy 1:16 – “But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life.”
- Romans 9:22 – “What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction…”
- Romans 3:25-26 – “…This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time…”
- Nehemiah 9:17, 30 – “But you are a God ready to forgive, gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love… Many years you bore with them and warned them by your Spirit through your prophets.”
- Ecclesiastes 8:11 – “Because the sentence against an evil deed is not executed speedily, the heart of the children of man is fully set to do evil.”
- Luke 13:6-9 – The fig tree given another year: “Sir, let it alone this year also, until I dig around it and put on manure. Then if it should bear fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.”
- Revelation 2:21 – “I gave her time to repent, but she refuses to repent of her sexual immorality.”
- 2 Peter 3:11-13 – “Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness… waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.”
- 1 Peter 3:20 – “…because they formerly did not obey, when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared…”
The Lord is not slow. He is patient.
Count that patience as salvation. It is meant to lead you to repentance, not to make you comfortable in delay.
Do not presume on the riches of His kindness. The same God who is slow to anger will by no means clear the guilty.
The ark was prepared while God waited in the days of Noah. The day of the Lord will come like a thief.
If you still hear the call, the door is still open. Return to the Lord. He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.
Live holy and godly lives while you wait. His patience toward you is a gift. Do not waste it.
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