Tag: Affliction

Digging in Deeper: Romans 12:12

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“Rejoice in hope; be patient in affliction; be persistent in prayer.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

As a longtime fan of the Kansas City Royals, I know what wishful thinking is. A decade ago now, all the metaphorical baseball planets aligned, and we were genuinely really good. Since then? And for most of the thirty years before then? Not so much. In just the last 25 years alone they’ve lost more than 100 games seven times, and gotten close to that grim marker of a truly terrible season another four times. And yet in almost every season there’s a stretch when they actually look like they’re going to be a real baseball team. The fans start getting excited. And you let yourself think, “This is finally the season they’re going to turn it around.” But they almost never do. Instead, we have learned to be patient in affliction and persistent in prayer. Real hope, though, has not given us much reason for rejoicing. As it turns out, all three of these ideas are commands Paul issues next in his list of lifestyle characteristics of a follower of Jesus. Let’s keep rolling with him.

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Digging in Deeper: Romans 5:3-5

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“And not only that, but we also boast in our afflictions, because we know that affliction produces endurance, endurance produces proven character, and proven character produces hope. This hope will not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

The Gospel isn’t just one thing. It is many things, and all of them are good. It’s the sort of thing where the more you explore it and the deeper you understand it, the more you come to find is there; the more you come to find just how comprehensive it truly is. Paul here has started unpacking the benefits of the Gospel. He started with peace, went to grace and glory, and now he takes us into territory it doesn’t seem like the Gospel should touch. Let’s talk about what the Gospel has to say about our hard times.

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Morning Musing: Romans 5:3-4

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“And not only that, but we also boast in our afflictions, because we know that affliction produces endurance, endurance produces proven character, and proven character produces hope.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

How do you handle it when things don’t go your way? Are you the kind of person who can pretty much just roll with it, or are you more of a worrier? The fact is, sometimes life doesn’t go our way. And while those departures from expectation are usually fairly minor and little more than inconveniences, occasionally they are far more bothersome than that. Sometimes these setbacks take the form of various trials and tribulations; they appear as painful persecutions. What do we do then? Paul offers some counsel here that sounds really odd, but in the context of a relationship with Jesus makes perfect sense. Let’s talk about it.

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Digging in Deeper: Isaiah 30:26

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“Moreover, the light of the moon will be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun will be sevenfold, as the light of seven days, in the day when the Lord binds up the brokenness of his people, and heals the wounds inflicted by his blow.”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

Have you experienced the “blow” of the Lord?  Israel was a stubborn group.  They had the Law from Moses and an overwhelming amount of evidence to support the wisdom of following that particular path as the only way to life and flourishing, but still, they constantly looked at the nations around them with envy in their hearts. Read the rest…