Christ's Perfect Patience

Christ demonstrates perfect patience toward those who are His. When an artist is sketching a person's face, he must look carefully and then he draws the lines which he believes and hopes will faithfully represent the one that he is looking at. He must patiently consider in order to faithfully represent. He must be patiently steady in what he draws, and then the likeness will be true. It is just so with Jesus Christ and even more so, because Jesus Christ as our Savior is faithfully and patiently representing us to the Father. His sketches are of our lives, as believers, and they are on-going throughout our lives, after our conversion. Christ draws the portrait of each believer's life with perfect patience and with perfect accuracy. He adds a little here, and takes away a little there until he achieves what He is looking for. And the Father's goal in receiving the sketches of our faces is to see how much they will, in the end, come to look like His dear Son. This requires great patience. In what ways, then, is the patience shown to Paul to be understood as a pattern for all of God's Elect?