Perseverance Anyone? Need Hope? How About Character? (Updated this morning after sleeping on it)

These are some thoughts running through my mind tonight and I wanted to share them with you. Maybe you will see yourself in these verses...

• "Therefore, having been justfied by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,
• Through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
• And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance;
• And perseverance, character;
• And character, hope.
• Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.
• For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.
• For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die.
• But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us."

       Romans 5: 1-8

My Interpretation: 



Anyone here wanting to learn perseverance?  Expect tribulations. - You will run into obstacles in life...stub your toe, see dead-ends and unexpected detours...but God is in the pathway...He's guiding each step and leading you to persevere during the tough times.
    Want character?  Learn perseverance from your tribulations and you will develop character.  "When the going gets tough...the tough get going" (who said that?)  Old houses are said to have character because they have interesting knicks and scrapes...unusual architecture weathered by many storms...bannisters and floors scuffed by many years of hands and feet running to and fro, up and down, perhaps even having had children sliding down the bannisters...revealing a beautiful patina to the wood and smoother surfaces...
         Need hope?  Develop character once you've learned perseverance through the experience of tribulations.  Life's experiences give us hope for the future as we remember how God provided in the past.
            Once you have hope...you will not be disappointed..."because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us."
                And remember this:  Before you were made strong by your tribulations and perseverance and character development...before the Holy Spirit was given to you...Christ died for you...while you were yet a sinner, without a hope in the world...Jesus Christ, the very Son of God, God in the flesh, showed His magnificent and immense love for us by dying in our place...taking our sin upon His own body...the pure and holy sacrificed for the stained and unholy. 

"Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God!"  I John 3:1

"When I survey the wondrous cross

On which the Prince of Glory died,

My richest gain I count but loss,

And pour contempt on all my pride.

Forbid it Lord, that I should boast,

Save in the death of Christ my God;

All the vain things that charm me most,

I sacrifice them to His blood.

See, from His head, His hands, His feet,

Sorrow and love flow mingled down--

Did e'er such love and sorrow meet,

Or thorns compose so rich a crown?

Were the whole realm of nature mine,

That were a present far too small;

Love so amazing, so divine,

Demands my soul, my life, my all."

Amen.

Isaac Watts, 1674-1748

I John 3:1

Jesus Christ, The same, Yesterday, Today and Forever...reaching out in love to you and me each day.

Now that brings great hope!!