The Love Of God!

I’ve been in Romans 5:3… for days and greatly encouraged and last night thinking on His love for the suffering one and what he wants them to know when they are suffering, despite what they may “feel,” despite what “circumstances” show… He loves them and wants them to know by GIFTING them the Holy Spirit to assure them and pointing to the Love of God through the cross of Christ! We so wrongly think that difficulties equal God’s displeasure and so we can become despondent, as it seems He is always displeased with us as life seems to be one difficulty after another, and we end up throwing in the towel in defeat with an attitude of “what’s the point, I can never please Him.” Have you ever thought life that?

This is one reason we have a Bible to help change our THINKING and see things from His Perspective in order that we may THINK right!

Paul says that “Hope does not disappoint”- {or make ashamed.}.-{v5}.One reason we are not disappointed, ashamed, is because of the assurance that God has poured out the love of God into our hearts to assure us! “and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.”-{Romans 5:5}.

 Suffering does not nullify God’s love for you!

The reason “hope does not disappoint us?” He used the word “because” to give us the reason The love of God has been poured out in our heart through the gift of the Holy Spirit to us, assuring us in our suffering, tribulations, pressures, difficulties. that God loves us! “Poured out,” implies an abundant  continual supply of His love and this by the gift of the Holy Spirit.

These sufferings {v3} are not a sign of his displeasure as we often think when something hard or difficult come into our lives and we need to renew, change our thinking to align up with His Word.-{Read Romans 12:2}. In verses 6-10 He explains this love of God for us! This is so so important because we each can go through suffering, tribulations and come out the other end, bitter, resentful, angry with God and believing God was “punishing us” and if he really was “good,” he would not have allowed me to go though this, and end up settling down in hostility towards God and others.

All because of a misunderstanding.We misunderstood God and His ways and end up…Bitter!

All this, because we had a wrong concept of God. We need to see our sufferings, tribulations, those things that cause distress from His perspective as reveled in His Word. This is why we must be like the Bereans who searched the Scripture when they listened to Paul, to see if what He was saying was true. We must become people of the Word, reading it studying it in order to Know Him, Love Him and follow Him  so we can know what the God of the Word thinks and would have us “to be Fully Aware”of! -{Read Ezra 7:10}

How sweet of the LORD, knowing us that when pain, suffering, comes into our lives we may think, and we do have an accuser who will bring such vile and destructive and untruthful thoughts to our mind seeking to get an entrance by tempting us to embrace them such as “God does not love you!…He is punishing You!” And if we embrace the lie we end up despondent, double-minded, fearful and a wrong concept of God as a loving Heavenly Father, whose discipline {training} is done not in wrath but in love for us. -{Heb 12:7}. With wrong concepts, believing that if we are His we should be exempt from suffering, tribulations, and when they happen we are surprised. Peter says we should not be surprised!-{1 Peter 4:12-13}. And if we do not understand Him and His ways…We We can end up “feeling” like a beaten animal cowering in a corner, fearful of saying doing or thinking the wrong thing in case it upsets GOD and He takes it out on us!

He knows the suffering one needs to be assured God loves them! And what is His appeal to His assurance of love for us? The Cross of Christ! The objective love of  God based on His Cross for us.

For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.“-{Romans 5;6-10}.

If God could love us when we were enemies, sinners, helpless, unGodly “MUCH MORE THEN…”

 Here is the point. Seeing your suffering, tribulations, as God’s Love, for you, not His anger, wrath!

His love for you in developing you, making you spiritually stronger in your faith, developing your hope and Christlike character!

We see

His love manifested in Justifying You -{v1}

His Love manifested in imparting Peace -{v1}

His Love manifested in Granting You Access To God -{v2}

His Love manifested in your new Standing In Grace -{v2}

His Love manifested in  Hope of a Future Joy -{v3}

His Love Manifested in Knowing His Purpose In Suffering -{v3-4}

His Love manifested In the Gift Of The Holy Spirit -{v5}

His Love manifested in The Cross -{v6-10} 

The Love of God, the Foundation and Focus in times of Suffering and “Knowing,…To be Fully Aware…” of what God is doing in times of suffering, tribulations, pressures…revealing Himself. He is not out to destroy you but develop you! He loves you and the above are reasons to THINK Right and Rejoice in His love for you. Thank Him for the above privileges of His love manifested and  gifted to you!

And He uses suffering as a means to produce Chrislike character in and through us…

“Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we “KNOW”…”TO BE FULLY AWARE”… that SUFFERING produces  something,… namely, PERSEVERANCE, and perseverance PROVEN CHARACTER; and  proven character,HOPE. 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. “-{Romans 5:3:5}.

NOTE ; What “SUFFERING PRODUCES…Perseverance, Proven Character, Hope,” when we respond His way and trust Him, obey Him and we can “glory… Boast… rejoice” “BECAUSE,” we are not ignorant but “knowing,” God is working! Does it lessen the pain, or sadness of heart? No, but in the pain there is Hope because we are assured God loves us and we know what He is doing.. SUFFERING IS PRODUCING…in us…Developing us, strengthening us in our faith and Christlikeness. We know this… and God assures us…we are loved… YOU…are… Loved… To The Suffering ones HE Assures them He LOVES them! Rejoice, delight, be glad in His Love for you and nothing or no one scan separate you from the Love of God in Christ.

“Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?…For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers,  nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.“-{Rom 8:35, 38-39}