I wrote this back in March, published it to my blogger site in April, and nearly forgot about it since. I was in the middle of my own “sufferings” and was watching quite a bit of it around me. I had no clue that the “sufferings” were nowhere near done coming. To be totally honest, since writing this, I haven’t been very good at the “rejoice” part of the command in the title.
There’s quite a few things recently that have brought me back to this post. Too much to type right now, maybe some other time in another blog post. For now, hopefully this will serve as the beginning of me getting back into writing.
The following is a reformatted, and somewhat edited, version of a previous post of mine so that it can hopefully be read easier from a mobile device. I figure it fits perfectly with the atmosphere around Thanksgiving 2020.
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Romans 5:1-5
“1 Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
2 Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
3 Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance,
4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope,
5 and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”
Vs 1 - “...we have peace with God...“
Based off of a footnote at the bottom of my bible, some manuscripts say “let us” instead of “we”. This tells me that it is a choice and this peace with God is not necessarily something that just naturally happens. I know there are times I don’t naturally have peace with God.
Vs 2 - “...we rejoice in the hope of the Glory of God.”
Another footnote at the bottom of the page in my bible says some manuscripts say “let us boast...”. This is another choice, this time to boast! Boast can be described as: an act of talking with excessive pride and satisfaction. So if we combine these two realizations, we come to the conclusion that we are called to choose to talk with excessive pride and satisfaction in the hope of the Glory of God!
Vs 3 - “Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings...”
Not only should we choose peace with God. Not only do we receive His grace through faith. Not only should we choose to boast in the hope of the Glory of God, but we should choose to rejoice in our sufferings. Paul, the writer of this passage, knew all about sufferings. Before his conversion, he was handing out sufferings left and right to Christians. Acts 8:1-4 speaks of the persecutions that Saul handed out. After conversion, Saul became Paul. The sufferings he then experienced as a christian are laid out in 2 Corinthians 11:23-28. The dude knew sufferings. And he calls us to rejoice in them.
I have too many happening around me right now to even list. I lived through too many in 2020 to even list. Co-workers, family members, church family... This year has proven to be a very, VERY challenging one for a lot of people.
But here’s what I love. Nearly every time a struggle is mentioned in the Bible, there’s a promise that God will work all things to the good of those that love Him and are called according to His purpose! The suffering is not the end of the story.
I heard something recently that I believe is important to mention here. We have no promise that this life will be easy. We have no promise for good health, for abundant wealth, or for worldly reasons for happiness. But we are promised one thing:
Belief in Jesus Christ means a hope in our eternal future. This is the only promise that I have found. Our joy should be in Him and in our eternal future. Suffering, even to the point of death, is not the end of the story.
But how do we know that suffering isn’t the end of the story?
... back to Romans 5 ...
Vs 3-4 - Suffering -> endurance -> character -> hope
- Endurance - Finishing a race strong. Not giving up til the end. Even when everything hurts and all you feel like doing is giving up, muscle memory kicks in and you finish your race no matter how hard.
- Character - The mental and moral qualities distinctive to an individual. When we have endurance through a hard time, we become mentally stronger. We see that we can do this. That God can do this. God can use us for this! Whatever your “this” is, it is absolutely NOT unattainable. This stronger mental state and attitude towards your calling will likely bring a higher confidence in yourself and in God for whatever He has you working on. It most certainly has for me!
- Hope - This is calling back to verse 2. The hope of the Glory of God. I have to believe this hope is referring to our hope we receive when we accept Christ. The hope of an eternal life with God instead of hell. The hope of being accepted by the Almighty as a new creation, thanks to Jesus. The best hope anyone could ask for.
Verse 5 rounds it off so beautifully. This hope does not put us to shame. Whatever you’re shameful of, whatever failures you’re holding on to, whatever failures you’re afraid you’ll have; give them to God. Because this hope does not put us to shame.
John 16:33
“I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”
The suffering is not the end of the story.
