Rejoicing in our trials

Romans 4 & 5

^4:20 Abraham never wavered in believing God’s promise. In fact, his faith grew stronger, and in this he brought glory to God. ²¹ He was fully convinced that God is able to do whatever he promises. ²² And because of Abraham’s faith, God counted him as righteous. ²³ And when God counted him as righteous, it wasn’t just for Abraham’s benefit. It was recorded ²⁴ for our benefit, too, assuring us that God will also count us as righteous if we believe in him, the one who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. ²⁵ He was handed over to die because of our sins, and he was raised to life to make us right with God.

^5:1 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. ² 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.

³ We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. ⁴ And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation. ⁵ 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.

⁶ When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners. ⁷ Now, most people would not be willing to die for an upright person, though someone might perhaps be willing to die for a person who is especially good. ⁸ But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners. ⁹ And since we have been made right in God’s sight by the blood of Christ, he will certainly save us from God’s condemnation. ¹⁰ For since our friendship with God was restored by the death of his Son while we were still his enemies, we will certainly be saved through the life of his Son. ¹¹ So now we can rejoice in our wonderful new relationship with God because our Lord Jesus Christ has made us friends of God.

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Romans is totally kicking my butt right now. There is so much going on in this short passage alone! Some parts sound really great, like the thought of "confidently and joyfully looking forward to sharing God's glory," but other parts, like "[running] into problems and trials," are not as much something I look forward to. It's verses like that that we (unfortunately) can't ignore.

We can't ignore the fact that right there, in plain English, the Bible tells us "life will not be easy." And not only that, it says we should rejoice in our trials! No wonder people think Christians are crazy. But, luckily for us, it also tells us why we should feel this way about hardships we are facing: because we develop endurance. As Kanye says: "tha-tha-tha-that that don't kill me, can only make me stronger." It doesn't stop at endurance, however. In chapter 5 verse 4 it goes on to say that endurance builds character and character gives us "confident hope of salvation."

Now, "character building" is usually a term parents use when they want you to clean the bathroom or pull weeds, or perform some other tedious, undesirable job, but this ain't your mother's character building. This is talking about Biblical, God-sized character building. Character-that-strengthens-your-belief-that-you're-going-to-heaven sized character building. I'm not sure I can even wrap my head around that concept.

A common reaction to hardships is to get angry at God and blame Him for your problems. However, these verses in Romans 5 suggest just the opposite. According to this passage, struggles in my life should actually strengthen my belief in salvation (ergo strengthening my faith in God to provide it), rather than the other way around.

This passage also mentions our ability to have a relationship with God, thanks to Christ's sacrifice on the cross. I'm not sure I ever noticed before the use of the word "friendship" in 5:10. This to me is such an awesome image, because who wouldn't want to be friends with God? It sounds like a pretty sweet hook-up if you ask me!


Any thoughts on the multitude of stuff I just wrote (if you even made it to the end)? Leave a comment! ;)

Powerful Stuff

In case you weren't aware (and if you know me at all, you are most certainly aware), I am a huge fan of Donald Miller. This video is from a DVD series for small groups called Convergence that he is the host of. The DVDs cover many different topics, but in this particular clip, Don and his guests Dr. Dan Allender and Dr. Tremper Longman talk about suffering, and the misconception that once we accept Christ as our Savior our lives will become perfect and problem-free. I know I often fall into the trap of believing that my life should be easy because of my relationship with Jesus, and it's always helpful to be reminded that that just is not the case!

Frustration and False Gods from All Things Converge on Vimeo.

Breathe

Rob Bell is amazing.

As we are coming up to finals, I think we all need a reminder to breathe, and I don't think there could be a better one that this right here: