TOLERANCE

Men, during my daily Bible reading plan, I was in James chapter 4.  Again, it is hard to be in the book of James and not find a juicy, meaty piece of truth that you can really chew on for a while.  The particular verse that got me this morning was James 4:4 You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.  

Reading this verse made me stop and think of the constant barrage from the world to be "tolerant."  You ever see those bumper stickers that spell out the word tolerance with the different symbols of different religions?  Ever wonder what tolerance Really means?  Webster's dictionary defines it for the world in several different ways:

• capacity to endure pain or hardship : endurance, fortitude, stamina
• sympathy or indulgence for beliefs or practices differing from or conflicting with one's own 
• the act of allowing something : toleration
• the allowable deviation from a standard; especial
• the capacity of the body to endure or become less responsive to a substance (as a drug) or a physiological insult especially with repeated use or exposure

I don't know about you guys, but that last one is the scariest of them all.  Just replace the parenthesis with (the world) and think of the body as the Body of Christ and I think you will see why I say its scary.

But what does God's Word say about "Tolerance?"  The word tolerance is translated from the word anochē.  Vines Expository Dictionary defines it as "a holding back."  It denotes "forbearance"...a delay of punishment.  In Romans 3:25 Paul is talking of God's forbearance with men; forbearance is the ground, not for His forgiveness, but His withholding of punishment.  In Romans 2:4 His forbearance represents a suspension of wrath which eventually must be exercised unless the sinner accepts God's conditions.

The world wants you to believe that you are a bigot, a racist, even hateful unless you are tolerant of the beliefs of others; to the world, tolerance means you have to accept these other belief systems or else you're not much of a Christian.  So what are we as Christians supposed to do with that?  Aren't we supposed to love our neighbor...even love our enemy?  YES!!  Emphatically YES!!  I encourage you to follow your Heavenly Father's lead in ALL things, but particularly in the case of "tolerance."  This is why He gave us His standard in His written word and His word says in James 4:4...friendship with the world = enemy of God.   I don't know about you guys...but I do NOT want to be an enemy of God.