"1 Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. 2Through 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. 3More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5and 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."
-Rom 5:1-5
As Christians, these are part of our lives now.
Peace doesn't just mean the absence of conflict like how the world would usually define it when they use the word as in "we want world peace" or just a nice feeling of serenity inside. "We have peace" is an "indicative sense of the presence of actual peaceful, harmonious concord", quoting my Romans class notes. :)
Same with joy/rejoicing, it's not just a happy warm feeling, but the confidence and joy that comes from knowing that as Christians, we are God's children and no matter what we go through now, the presence of God is still real and unchanging, and the hope we have in Him is unchanging either--which is why we can rejoice in suffering (cf Philippians 4:4; Rom 8:17).
The hope that we have is a "know-so" hope, not a "hope-so" hope. We don't hope that God will be true to His promises like how we use the word usually, but we hope because we know that He will but we are just not there yet (heaven is still to come for us in a sense).
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5 months ago
1 comment:
I like your post. So simple and somewhat "poetic." My favorite part is "joy/rejoicing, it's not just a happy warm feeling." It reminds me of winter, Christmas, snowman, and hot chocolate! And yep, joy is definitely much greater than the "happiness" that the world seeks. :D
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