5:3
“Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings ...” This is a common theme of the New Testament (James 1:2-4; 1 Pet 1:6,7). Indeed, chapters 5-8 can be looked at as a section, and the end of chapter 8 concludes with Paul’s statement that nothing will separate us from the love of God, and the specific things he mentions include difficulties of various sorts. We are to live a victorious life, but it is not the vacuous prosperity of the so-called prosperity gospel. So we rejoice in our sufferings. There are two key messages here, one is that we will experience hardships and difficulties, the other is that they are achieving a purpose.
5:4,5
The purpose achieved by sufferings is the development of a Christlike character within us, and we get a list of the various aspects of that character. The first characteristic is endurance, the ability to keep on going. This produces character, a strength of character that can cope with anything. This then produces hope, and this hope does not disappoint us. If we have a hope that transpires to have been utterly groundless then we “put to shame”, but this will not be the case with our hope. What are our grounds for this? It is “the love of God that has been poured into our hearts”. It is not based on a philosophy, but on a relationship with the living God. And He has poured out this love through the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit makes known to us the love God has for us.
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