Rom 5: 1 to 11

Romans 5 TNIV (Today's New International Version)

Peace and Hope

1 Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. 3 Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4 perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5 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.

6 You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. 7 Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

9 Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through him! 10 For if, while we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! 11 Not only is this so, but we also boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.


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Life sometimes can get too comfortable that we forget that virtue of Perseverance. I, for one, seem to have gotten less disciplined as the years pass. Maybe is the fact that I earn my own keep, am an adult, can make my own decisions, know the ways of the world, what needs to be done, what doesn't...that it becomes not as important to be disciplined and to find ways out of our miseries asap.


I read a superb write-up during my devotions using the Every Day With Jesus booklet. Which I will extract below:


Today we ask ourselves: What is the point of diligence? Why keep persevering with a task? I'll tell you why. It is because it is the arena of perseverance that true character is forged, shaped, tempered and polished. It is in the daily grind -- in the hard and often tedious duties of life -- that the character of Jesus is given the maximum opportunity to be reproduced in us, replacing what Charles Swindoll calls that 'thin, fragile internal theology with a tough reliable set of convictions that enable us to handle life rather than escape from it'.


Listen to what the apostle Paul says about this in Romans 5:3-4: 'We also rejoice in our sufferings, [why?] because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope'. Because life is a task, we need strength to face it, not speed to escape from it. When the foundations shake beneath our feet, when Christian friends or even leaders allow themselves to fall into immortality, when the anchor points of civilisation disappear, when the bottom of our world seems to drop out and brutal blows push us up against the ropes and pound the very life out of us, we need what diligence and perseverance offer us - willingness to face whatever comes, determination to stand firm, knowing that Jesus is not just with us but in us, insight to see Christ's hand in everything, and character enough to continue.


Without diligence, we will stumble and fall. With it, we can survive and overcome. The astute of this world are wise enough to recognise that no advances can be made in life without diligence. How much more ought we, who name the name of Christ and have Him living within us, recognise this also?