Promises: Patience - Hebrews 6:12

As children of God we are created to live in the promises God made to His creation.

Now when people take an oath, they call on someone greater than themselves to hold them to it. And without any question that oath is binding. God also bound himself with an oath, so that those who received the promise could be perfectly sure that he would never change his mind. So God has given both his promise and his oath. These two things are unchangeable because it is impossible for God to lie. Therefore, we who have fled to him for refuge can have great confidence as we hold to the hope that lies before us. (Hebrews 6:16-18 NLT)

Lesson Focus: Patience (bearing pains or trials calmly or without complaint)

Why are some people more patient than others? What situations really test your patience?

There is a long standing warning from mature Christians about praying for patience. They will tell you that when you pray for patience God will shower you in trials to prove to you how much patience you already have in Him. That kind of fear, that something negative could result from prayer, contradicts God’s very nature.
Whatever is good and perfect comes down to us from God our Father, who created all the lights in the heavens. He never changes or casts a shifting shadow. (James 1:17 NLT)

However . . . 
The Greek word that Paul, James, Peter, and the writer(s) of Hebrews used, was most commonly translated as longsuffering until the 1970’s
makroqumia – makrothumia (mak-roth-oo-mee'-ah)
King James Word Usage - Total: 14 - longsuffering (12), patience (2) 1769 – the latest KJV
New American Standard Word Usage – Total 14 – patience (14) 1971
We must have lost our appetite for suffering.

Did your parents teach you to suffer well? Have you taught your children to suffer well?

To live in the promises is to suffer well.
And we desire that each one of you show the same diligence so as to realize the full assurance of hope until the end, so that you will not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises. (Hebrews 6:11-12 NASB)

Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.
(James 1:2-4 NLT)

For God is pleased with you when you do what you know is right and patiently endure unfair treatment. Of course, you get no credit for being patient if you are beaten for doing wrong. But if you suffer for doing good and endure it patiently, God is pleased with you. (1 Peter 2:19-20 NLT)

Promises Kept:
Day by day the followers of Christ are tested by the brokenness of this world. In China and Pakistan believers fear death. In the United States we fear the loss of our impact on a society that is becoming more human with each generation. As the Body of Christ we must help one another “suffer well.”