Faithful to the end...

Character builds endurance…but to build character you must be tested, challenged and make the choices to endure.

Reflecting on Romans 5 and releasing that the adversity that I typically experience is minor…very minor. As we see in Paul’s epistles there’s persecution in the churches. Christians are being tested for their faith in actual life threatening ways. To proclaim Jesus was of much greater cost for the people in the Ancient Near East than it is for me right now.

Yet there is still endurance to be gained by the experiences we have in life. As I’m coming out of a season where there was a lot of disappointments as well as joys, it’s in the processing of this pain that I’m seeing my character bloom. It’s in the way Paul puts it in 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.”

Some things to notice is that all the promises of God that we receive are THRU Him and BY Faith. There is no more mystery in who God is through Jesus. There’s no moment that happens in our world that can’t be redeemed. This life we live as Christians is meant to be WITH CHRIST a relationship of influence by HIS design.

It has a lot less to do with us than we think on a daily basis but it does involve a life willing surrendered and constantly seeking His wisdom, Holy Spirits instruction and making actions towards mirroring His ways.

Things to think about:

Is Jesus central in your life?

What might you need to surrender to let God work Thru You?

Romans 15:13 “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.” Amen

-jdw