Liz’s Morning Devotional: Scripture selected from Upper Room
January 2, 2024
Romans 5:1-5
1 Therefore, since we have been made righteous through his faithfulness, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. 2 We have access by faith into this grace in which we stand through him, and we boast in the hope of God’s glory. 3 But not only that! We even take pride in our problems because we know that trouble produces endurance, 4 endurance produces character, and character produces hope. 5 This hope doesn’t put us to shame, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.
Good Morning! The love of God has been poured into our hearts!
Paul would have made a good athletic coach. Who better than a coach can look at hardship, especially within training, and see a chance to improve endurance, which leads to character and, finally, to everlasting hope. Coaches can walk into a locker room at halftime of a game when everything that could have gone wrong has happened and find a way to use those troubles to make his/her team believe they can go out and win the game.
Now Paul may or may not have the physical prowess of an athletic coach, but he is coaching our spiritual beings. When things are good, we praise God. We praise God even more when things are awful because great blessings are on the other side of our struggles.
Our faith grows as we encounter and overcome the adversities that we encounter. By the grace of God, we are loved and given all that we need to endure. We are blessed by the Holy Spirit, who works within us to open our hearts to the possibilities of God’s glory. In the book of James, we are told to consider our challenges joyfully because we grow in our perseverance and faith through them.
We’ve received our pep talk, so let’s huddle up and put our hands together. Come on, you know the drill: 1 - 2 - 3 GO TEAM! We've got this! We are on the winning team!
Gracious God, Thank you for this beautiful gift of life. It’s hard to be joyful in our struggles. We think that we would like it better if everything were easy. Help us embrace the chance to grow in faith. In the name of Jesus, we pray. Amen
Thought for the day: I can rely on God for resilience and strength.
Let’s praise God for our struggles on this ninth day of Christmas! Pastor Liz
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