Romans 5:3 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.
The challenge is to find any meaning in suffering. Many things cause suffering in our life: emotional challenges, physical illnesses, social ridicule, financial hardship, and many other things. A lot of suffering comes about because of our own poor choices and sinful actions. The New Testament talks about suffering for the sake of Jesus because we are believers and the world hates the light that shines through us. Paul is not clear about what type of suffering in this verse, which makes this verse applicable to many things in life. We can endure suffering because of God’s grace that gives us hope that there is something beyond suffering. More so, we can find meaning in our suffering. Suffering will make us strong if we endure and learn to trust more through it. The outcome of trusting more is stronger character. We will be able to endure suffering more in the future. We gain more trust in God through suffering. We also grow in our convictions and our lifestyle becomes more like Jesus who suffered for us before and on the cross. Hope is the motivation, fuel, and resource of strength that helps us through suffering. If we give in to our suffering and live in doubt and fear, we will experience shame before God. But hope confirms our faith and makes it stronger. We can stand before God in confidence and openness. The compelling strength behind all of this is God’s love. God has acted first in loving us. We experience this love through the Holy Spirit. This is all available to those who have been justified. Those who reject the light miss out on all of this. The simple idea is that God has come to us first with love through the Holy Spirit. We need to respond in faithfulness which will be shown in our trust in difficult times. The more we learn to trust in God and see God’s love in our lives, the stronger we will grow and the more our character will become like Jesus.
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