So, we are in right standing with God and we have the hope of glory. How does this work out in practice? Well the glory of God in our lives becomes a reality through suffering, through testing times. So we are to rejoice in the hope of glory, and to rejoice in our sufferings.
Now we do not rejoice in our sufferings for the sake of it, but because of what suffering produces. First it produces endurance. One of the features of life is people giving up. We need to become people who do not give up. How does suffering do this? We see the truth of God's promises, the truth of His word. We see that His word is more powerful, more lasting than any circumstance or opposition.
Suffering produces character and hope. A man or woman of character is one who knows how to get through difficult times, how to continue to be fruitful and faithful in the face of opposition and trials. We learn that God's plans actually do work out in the end, so we have hope. We have seen some things work out already, and the things that we have not yet seen, we are confident that God will complete this work as well in His time.
This hope does not put us to shame. If we say we are hoping for something, that we believe it will happen, and it never happens then we are put to shame. We look like fools. But hope in God will not disappoint us.
How can we know this? God's love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit. Now suffering does not automatically produce all this stuff. It does so because we are justified, because we believe, and because we have the Holy Spirit, and so know the love of God.
If we are in the midst of difficulties we need to focus our minds on the following:
- Through Christ we have been made right with God.
- We have a glorious hope, our destiny is to become like Jesus.
- The Holy Spirit will work in our lives by revealing the love of God to us, and through us to other people.
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