Today, I am writing for my friends not readers because I want to involve everyone in this post. Recently, I observed that what I was tolerating was affecting my faith. I exposed myself to some things I normally wouldn’t work with and it took its’ toll on me.
Tolerance: willingness to accept feelings, habits or beliefs different from your own. It’s very important for everyone to be tolerant but there must be a limit to it.
What if you’re being over-tolerant
You know what goes well with you naturally and you know what you just tolerate. There are some things that naturally you can’t stand if someone does it . In the same way, just like you have these standards, others also have theirs as well.
When you start tolerating things you normally can’t stand , you need to re-evaluate your stand against those things. It works the same way in Christianity, you can’t tolerate everything because not everything should be allowed.
What you tolerate today, can lead to sin tomorrow.
How you may ask?
Everyone based on their relationship with God have some things that are seen as sin. Unintentionally, if you do one of those things once and it becomes a habit, you are tolerating sin. Let’s work with this practical analogy:
You meet Jay today and he says he will call you later. You are the type of person who wouldn’t pick up calls past 10 pm. Jay calls you by 9:59 pm (you can’t end the call in a minute) and you pick up the call, unintentionally you have told Jay it’s okay to call me at this time. It continues like a routine and when you want to stop it, you find it so hard to because what you allowed momentarily is what you are getting used to.
What you tolerate will become your standard
There’s this common saying: What you tolerate will become your standard. It doesn’t matter if you tolerate it momentarily, what matters is you tolerated it at all.
As a Christian , what you tolerate will become the anchor for you if you don’t have a strong relationship with God. It’s important for us to be spirit-led with what we tolerate because not everything is worth tolerating.
‘Whoever scorns instruction will pay for it, but whoever respects a command is rewarded. ‘ Proverbs 13:13
Before you tolerate anything in the world, make sure it is:
- Spirit-led : The Holy spirit should help you make the choice if it is worth tolerating or not and if it will bring a divide between you and God
Being Temperate
The Bible tells us to be temperate in all things in 1 Corinthians 9:25:
And everyone who competes for the prize is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a perishable crown, but we for an imperishable crown. I Corinthians 9:25
I recently made a blog post about 1 Corinthians 9:24 , Do check it out.
To be temperate means to do everything modestly. Let us also apply being temperate in tolerance while we compete for this prize of making heaven.
What is that thing you are tolerating?
You know what you are tolerating that may be affecting your faith, I pray that God helps you to break free from it .
For me, that thing is Instagram. I started cutting back on the hours I use to promote my blog through it. Although, once in a while I still use it to promote the blog. Recently, I started disciplining myself and It is working well for me.
I had a problem with Instagram because I was dwelling on everything I saw and it was quite problematic for me. I pray that you guard your hearts jealously from the things of this world.
Read the previous article: The God everyone should know about
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