Your Daily Bible

Romans 5:5 "And hope does not disappoint us because God has poured out His love in our hearts by the Holy spirit whom He has given us."

There are two responses we often take to suffering:  "Why?" or "Help!"  Why is it that we get mad at the one who can help us the most?  Even in your suffering God loves you and has your best interest at heart. We can run to Jesus in our times of suffering, He understands! He is our perfect leader! And our perfect example. 

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Romans 5:3-4
Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4 perseverance, character; and character, hope.

Trials, rather than destroying our hope, are meant to increase our hope.  What is hope?  In the New Testament, hope does not mean wishful thinking.  It means confidence.  In this development period of your life, God says I'm going to use the problems in your life to give you the ability to handle pressure and that will make you reliable and a person of character, Christlike character.  And when you have this Christlike character you will be confident.  Trials will give you more confidence.  The first time you have the problem you don't know what to do.  The second time you had the problem you handle it a little bit better.  The third time...  You get confidence because you've been through the situation with Jesus by your side.  When you become a veteran in the crises of life it produces confidence, stability and you become bold from the experiences because you can say from experience, not just from head knowledge, but from real life personal testimony, that God will never leave you or forsake you.  

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Romans 5:1-5(NLT)
Therefore, since we have been made right in God’s sight by faith, we have peace with God because of what Jesus Christ our Lord has done for us. Because of our faith, Christ has brought us into this place of undeserved privilege where we now stand, and we confidently and joyfully look forward to sharing God’s glory.

We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation. And this hope will not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love.

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Romans 5:1-5(NLT)
Therefore, since we have been made right in God’s sight by faith, we have peace with God because of what Jesus Christ our Lord has done for us. Because of our faith, Christ has brought us into this place of undeserved privilege where we now stand, and we confidently and joyfully look forward to sharing God’s glory.

We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation. And this hope will not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love.

The Greek word for perseverance literally means the ability to handle pressure.  God uses our suffering to teach you how to handle pressure, how to hang in there, never give up, be consistent, how to trust him completely. The opposite of perseverance is panic.  You want to bail out, run away, and fall apart.  You can either panic or persevere when you're under pressure.  Paul says that God's very first purpose of suffering is to teach us how to handle pressure.  

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Romans 5:3-4 "Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4 perseverance, character; and character, hope."

 Paul says we are to rejoice in our suffering. He doesn't mean faking it.  He's not talking about putting on a plastic smile and pretending everything's OK.  He's not saying be a Pollyanna and deny reality.  He's not talking about an artificial happiness.  Many people take these verses and think that as a Christian you have to always to be smiling.  That's hypocrisy, being a phony.  Jesus never expects you to be a phony.  That's not what rejoicing in suffering means -- that you pretend that everything is OK when it's not.

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Romans 5:2  "Because of our faith, Christ has brought us into this place of undeserved privilege (grace) where we now stand, and we confidently and joyfully look forward to sharing God’s glory."
We not only have peace with God, but access to God. Notice the word STAND, Paul didn’t say we have access by faith into his grace where we now sneak in, or quickly race through before we get zapped. No he said we can stand, we can plant ourselves in the presence of God and enjoy him as much, as long, and as often as we choose. And then the end of the verse makes this insane statement about the crazy amazing future that lays ahead for all of us who are in Christ. Paul says we joyfully look forward to sharing God’s glory! Now try to wrap your brain around that we are invited to share in the glory of the Father! 

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Those of us who are in Christ have PEACE WITH GOD! The War is over! Hostility has ended! The War with God is over, and this is an important fact for us to know! Japan surrendered to the United States on August 15th 1945 bringing WW2 officially to an end but the last Japanese soldier did not surrender his post until 1972! Almost 30 years after the fighting had stopped! He was on a remote island in the South Sea and just prior to Japan's surrender he had received orders to disrupt trade and shipping and not take his own life. You see he didn’t know the war was over! So he just kept on fighting, and we do the same thing! We think I hope God’s not mad at me, I hope he doesn’t come down hard on me, He must be really upset with me..  We don’t get it! THE WAR IS OVER! The Sin that separated us from God has been dealt with forgiven; it has been separated from us once and for all because of Jesus! 

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