Topic: Producing Patience, Character, and Hope [September 9, 2016]
Moreover [let us also be full of joy now!] let us exult and triumph in our troubles and rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that pressure and affliction and hardship produce patient and unswerving endurance. And endurance (fortitude) develops maturity of character (approved faith and tried integrity). And character [of this sort] produces [the habit of] joyful and confident hope. – Romans 5:3-4
It is easy to say, “Don’t worry.” But to actually do that requires experience with God. I don’t think there is any way a person can fully overcome the habit of worry, anxiety, and fear and develop the habit of peace, rest, and hope without years of experience. That’s why it is so important to continue to have faith and trust in God in the very midst of trials and tribulations. It is so important to resist the temptation to give up and quit when the going gets rough—and keeps on getting rougher over a long period of time. It is in those hard, trying times that the Lord is building in us the patience, endurance, and character that will eventually produce the habit of joyful and confident hope.
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