God is patient, not tolerant so don’t get the two terms mixed up. God’s patience comes from giving us free will. Our free will does not force us to obey God but gives us a choice. We can choose to disobey and sin, or we can choose to align ourselves with his word. Tolerance is a term that the devil uses to falsely equate God’s acceptance of our sin. God does not accept sin, as he is sinless, and sin cannot be in his presence. God’s patience allows us time to turn from our sinful ways and seek repentance. Sometimes repentance takes years, decades or an entire lifetime.
Tolerance is accepting sin and not holding it accountable. Sinful tolerance is a trick of the devil and should be avoided. There is no harmonizing or accepting sin if you are a born-again believer who has chosen a life of repentance. Demonic houses of worship look past accountability in the name of tolerance and embrace the sin. This behavior is counter to everything that God demonstrates for us and not a biblical course of action. There is absolutely no justification in any circumstances for someone who claims to be a Christian to be tolerant and accepting of sin. Loving the sinner but rejecting the sin is the only God honoring thing to do in this situation.
God is patient because he loves us.
God wants us to change our ways. We were made perfect in his image and born into a sinful world. Every sin that we engaged in at any age, is still our responsibility to own. No one can make you sin; it is a choice. Repentance is also a choice. This is the defining line of our behavior, choose sin or choose repentance. I have yet to find a person on this earth that would put up with the kind of crap that God puts up with from us. As humans, we are arrogant, prideful, selfish, hateful and just down right mean. The good news is that those behaviors are also choices. We can choose to be like God and seek out his traits like truth, love, and compassion.
It is not truthful, loving or compassionate to tolerate sin without calling it out. We should be publicly rebuking sin when we see it. I am not talking about laying out judgement against an individual or condemning them. What I am talking about is calling a sin a sin instead of excusing the behavior. We need to be tougher on sin and take a stand against it. Passive conformity has created an environment where it is acceptable to sin. Each passing year some sins become more and more acceptable. The box of acceptance becomes a little wider and instead of reigning in sin, we build a bigger box to house it in.
Clamping down on sin takes all believers to hold each other accountable. It takes men of courage to lead bodies of believers. It also requires that we publicly rebuke behaviors that are morally wrong even if the behavior is happening behind the four walls of a church. Even if the behavior is being deluged from the tongue of demonic men of faith that lead congregations. No more tolerance for sinful behavior. God is patient, not tolerant and we should follow his lead.
Psalm 37:7 New American Standard Bible 1995
7 Rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him; Do not fret because of him who prospers in his way, Because of the man who carries out wicked schemes.