suffering (Romans 5:1-5)

**jars of clay** Thu Sep 04, 2008 2:39 am

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 More than that, 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.

How do we tell others about Christ? How do we share this faith we have with others? You know when you learn about something exciting, your first thought it to tell others right? I mean which person that finds a cure for cancer wants to hide it in a vault? No we would share it with the world. Now tell me is not the sin problem a much much more important problem than cancer? We have this amazing thing to tell the world, and when we do we often forget to warn them about something. that is suffering.

We dont really have a answer for why things happen, of course the easy excuses to suffering are that this is just a fallen world, or that Satan is just really laying the heat on us. Now these are true reasons, but they do not point out something that is mentioned in this text, and that is that God uses bad times to draw us nearer to himself, what is more, he actively allows them to happen. What I mean is this; nothing is outside of his control, meaning that he has the power to allow the very thoughts as well as the actions we do. There is quite literally nothing we can do that will surprise God. What is more, for Satan to be able to tempt us he has to exist right? We don't often think of this, but God is allowing every moment that Satan is free. That Satan is only able to survive because God allows him to. This is why Paul will talk later in this letter about all things working together for good for those who love God [Romans 8].

So why does he? I mean if God can stop bad things from happening, why doesn't he? Have you ever seen a beautiful tapestry? All the fabrics and colors work together for make a picture, but can you see that picture if you turn the tapestry around and look at the back side? No, you just see a mess. So what does a tapestry have to do with why God is allowing bad things to happen? We cant always see what the big picture is, we are looking at history from the backside if you will, and so we cannot see the picture that God is creating. Going back to the text you will that verse three to the end of the passage i pasted earlier, that Paul says that we rejoice in our suffering, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produced character, and character produces hope. You know, something that we can see quite clearly in bad times are those who have the Holy Spirit and those who don't. On one hand when the suffering comes (and it will come for all) for one who is saved, he will take the suffering and continue to hope in Christ, knowing that this world is but a shadow and will pass, and through the suffering, one who is (to use the overly used and somewhat useless term) saved will continue to grow closer to Christ. On the other hand one who is not saved will suffer and be bitter about it, they will think that they do not deserve the hard luck, and will shake their fist at God. This brings me to my last point, and that is something that I will continue to stress about the Christian faith, and that is we cannot survive without the aid of the Holy Spirit. It is through the Spirit that we see our sin, that we see our need for grace, that we see the truth in what Christ has promised. It is through the Holy Spirit that we have faith that Christ will redeem us on the final day (this is so that no one may boast in their own faith and say they save themselves), and finally it is through the spirit that we are not made bitter by the trials and tribulations that are present in this world, through the spirit that we grow closer to God.

So what do we take from this? First I would stress to always be examining your heart. Pride is amazing in that it seeps through every pious crack, and wraps its strangle hold around even the most humble statement. We can truly do nothing good on our own. So we should always be giving God the credit and the glory. And secondly I would also say that when you do go through suffering, you see as a time where you are being beat up, but a time where God is drawing you closer to Himself, and asking you to trust Him more.