Last night our worship service was on Romans and The Gravity of Grace. My favorite book from the Bible. I know it so well, and yet sometimes I am surprised by how new the words can sound when I need them most.
If God is for us, who can be against us?
My friend Katie wrote on her blog this week about what is saving her life right now. It’s a great read, go over and take a look. Go ahead, I’ll wait.
Wasn’t that great? What would the world be like if we asked “what is saving your life?” instead of “how are you?” It got me thinking about how I would answer. How would I answer, now, when I need a little bit of saving?
Right now I’m holding onto hope, which we are promised does not disappoint. God promises that going through suffering will produce perseverance, which produces character, which leads to hope, which will not put us to shame. I’ve been through this before, all four stages, time and time again. So I know that His promise is good, just like Him. So when I find myself in one of those states, I can have hope. Because I know it is coming. Suffering produced hope, as promised, and that’s what I hold on to when the struggle still has hold of me.
His word is good, just as He is good.
“And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.”
“I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.”
“What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died —more than that, who was raised to life —is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written:
For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Amen.
Bigger in Real Life 
“God promises that going through suffering will produce perseverance, which produces character, which leads to hope, which will not put us to shame.” These words are such a grand conformation of a live lived for Christ! It gives me comfort to know that even in the midst of fear, uncertainty, and suffering, we can know that God is for us! He is using whatever bad thing the devil hopes to use to get a foothold on our faith, and He is producing fruit. Thank you for this reminder, Christy.
I know of nothing more powerful than hope. There is nothing like it. While I believe they hold similar meanings, it is my assumption that God created faith and hope to work as shield and sword; one fights and one protects, alternating positions as situations arise, but at all times one remains on the offense, one on the defense.
You mentioned holding on to hope. Is there something specifically I can be praying about for you?
I love that concept: faith and hope being a shield and sword. What a great way to think about it; very “put on the full armor of God,” Cara, thanks.
I love prayers, thank you! You can pray that we won’t always be stuck where we are. I know we won’t be, which is why I have hope, but I’d covert prayers all the same. Thanks, friend.
Absolutely! Will add this to my prayers. I’ll be thinking of you today, and asking the Holy Spirit to rest firmly on you, impressing His comfort and assurance in all that is Good and Right and Light.
xoxox
This is good stuff, Christy. Thanks. And thanks for the link!