Good morning! Endurance only comes one way and that is through suffering.

Romans 5 starts off about the peace of God that comes through our Lord Jesus Christ. Every Christian wants that peace, but is every Christian willing to go through what it takes to arrive at the place Christ would have them?

The peace we possess comes through the justifying work of Christ who took the penalty of our sin on our behalf. Christ secured our peace, our reconciliation between us and God. This provides us access into the grace in which we stand.

Standing in Christ means suffering for Christ! That’s bad, right? No, that’s ultimately good because the “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 5:3-5). Suffering to endurance, endurance to character, character to hope–all through the love of God poured into us in the Holy Spirit.

Do you want to endure? Then rejoice in the sufferings for Christ that come your way. Living for Christ means losing your ‘self’ in the process. Is your joy found in Christ? Are you ready to endure for Him? Then you know what it takes. He will give you the strength to persevere.