Hosanna Restoration Church

We always have a choice when it comes to the Word of God. We can love it or leave it. We can live with it or die without it. The bottom line is that it is always our choice. This scripture tells us that we can rejoice when we run into problems and trials. The truth is that they do help us learn to endure. Let’s face it; we all have some things from time to time that fall into the “endure” category! It seems to me, that God may be showing us here that it is more “endurable” when we are rejoicing that when we make ourselves more miserable. The quicker we learn, the less time we spend enduring!

I know that everything is not enjoyable, but we can always enjoy the comfort and guidance of the Lord in all things. As we learn to turn to Him, the things that we struggled to endure soon become things that we quickly pass on to Him. After all, He is the one that can and wants to handle everything.

It is always beneficial to back up a bit when we see a scripture like this and see where God is coming from when He makes such a statement. First of all, we have been made right in God’s sight. (vs.1) That is always enough to make me stop and smile. We have peace with God, not because we are wonderful, but because of what Jesus Christ our Lord has done. We may not always be perfect, but what He has done and continues to do never changes.

Not only that, but simply because we believe God, because of our faith, we have been brought into a place of highest privilege. (vs.2) Because of this, we can confidently stand and joyfully look forward to sharing God’s glory.

I think that we Christians are often guilty of failing to see ourselves as being in a place of highest privilege. There has been a lot of emphasis put on enduring and not nearly enough emphasis on enjoying and rejoicing. I think the world would be more interested in confident victorious Christianity. They have seen plenty of the miserable endurance type!

For most of my life I have been involved in athletics. I learned early what it meant to do one more push up, one more sit up, or one more sprint. I did not always love it while I was doing it, but I loved what it did for me. It gave me that extra edge, that extra step, and that extra confidence.

When things come at us as Christians, we can have the extra confidence too. No matter what comes, we can get better or bitter. It is our choice. We can face things knowing that we are in harmony with God and with His word and will, with confidence that His glory is about to show up. Yes we can rejoice, when we learn to turn to the One that we know is always true.