This week has been a crappy week. Like, the finest top shelf bona fide crappy. When crushing not one, but TWO of my children’s hands in the car window and getting not one, but TWO flat tires in one day falls on the bottom of the crappy tier, you know it’s bad. At one point after receiving two texts from loved ones sharing really bad news, I texted my parents in a rant, All this crappy stuff is happening right now (…) I need Jesus and I need you.
Side note, this post warranted the overuse of the word “crappy” in that intro. I promise I’ll limit the use going forward.
Anyway, my dad texted back a few minutes later with Romans 5:1-5. I didn’t even need to look up the verse because I have sent this verse to a number of people in the past couple of years that have had way crappier circumstances happen to them. But, last night as I was crawling into bed, I decided to read the verse again.
Romans 5:1-5
Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. 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. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 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.
We Stand in God’s Grace
God’s grace is one of those things I feel like we don’t talk about enough. I wonder how many of us really understand what it means to stand in His grace? I wonder how many of us have humbled ourselves to the almightiness of THE CREATOR and realize that this is the GOD who created heaven and earth, sent His son to DIE for all of our sins so that we can share eternity with Him in heaven. Can you wrap your brain around that? The creator of LIFE wants me to be with Him in heaven so much so that He sacrificed his own son so that I can be. That makes me appreciate standing in His Grace a little more. I am so not deserving of it, and yet he doesn’t care about that because he has already given us a free gift of His favor through faith in Jesus Christ. Even on the crappiest of days! So, the fact that I am suffering and even writing this blog post is because I stand in His Grace. I am already His!!! There is much to be celebrated about that.
Boast In The Hope Of The Glory of God and Rejoice in Our Sufferings
Rejoice in our sufferings? I don’t know about you, but when crappy things happen to me, I’m not joyful that they are happening. But the Bible says we should be because suffering produces perseverance, and perseverance produces character, and character, hope. What does that all mean? If you break it down, it means that in our suffering our true heart is revealed by how we turn to Christ, and when we draw near to him our character changes for the better. The definition of perseverance is: steadfastness in doing something despite difficulty or delay in achieving success. I think our suffering makes us steadfast in turning to God and the result is that we build character. We become more righteous and seek to be closer to Christ, and that is a work God is doing in the hearts of His believers for our whole lives. God uses this time to change our hearts so much that we begin to rely on Him more and more. And when we do, we come out of it as stronger witnesses of His life changing work.
Hope Does Not Put Us to Shame
Basically, we will never be made a fool by having hope in The Lord because we are already filled with His Spirit. And that gives us the belief that He is Lord over all. He is sovereign, even during crappy days. And, He will give us full restoration over any suffering.
Anyway, I hope this helps someone having a bad day. I know it helped me last night and this morning as I start a new day.
Hoping you find rest in His favor and boast in the hope that our Savior gives!
XO,
Stacy
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