Devotion for Friday in the First Week in Lent

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through 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. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and 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.

~ Romans 5:1-5

We don’t like to suffer, and most of us exaggerate the extent of our own sufferings. In a group of several people who have all been sick, each tends to describe his or her illness as more severe than the others. College kids are triggered by minor hardships and feel they have to go to a safe space. Most of us do everything we can to avoid suffering. Yet, God’s Word tells us to rejoice in sufferings because of the result to which suffering leads. If we want to have endurance, character, hope, and God’s love poured into us by the Holy Spirit, we should welcome suffering.

Father God, I don’t like to suffer, but I know that great benefits come from suffering. Help me to rejoice in suffering to build endurance, character, and hope of the love of God poured into my heart through the Holy Spirit. What I see as pain and tribulation to be avoided, You see a way of molding me more and more into the person You created me to be—a way to make me more like Jesus. Let me praise You and thank You rather than complain. In the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

These daily devotions are available in a book The Grace of God, with all profits donated to Love for the Least to share the compassion of Christ with an unreached world. L4L shares the Good News of the Gospel with the least and unreached by making disciples of Jesus who make disciples (2 Tim 2:2) and by helping to meet the physical needs of the poorest of the poor.

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