Reason for Hope

"After you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself perfect, confirm, strengthen and establish you." -1 Peter 5.10

Suffering is part of life, but in suffering there is hope. God is the source of all grace. He is present with us in the trials; He is by our side as we face hardships. We do not suffer alone, because we are surrounded by the grace of God. In this we have hope.

God's grace does not remove suffering. Danger is not erased, and our problems are not eliminated because of God. However, we have the strength to endure because God is with us.Think back a few posts to where I shared about Samson and the lion, how did he manage to kill the lion? Because the Spirit of God came mightily upon him. David attributed his victory as he went after the stolen sheep to God's deliverance.

My mind goes to Joshua in the Old Testament, "Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous! Do not tremble or be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go." (Joshua 1.9). I think of Paul in the New Testament, "But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ, and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith, that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead." (Philippians 3.7-11)

Joshua still had to lead a military campaign, and Paul was still in prison, but they saw past the suffering and moved forward because God was with them. The God of all grace was there.

I think of Psalm 46.8-11, "Come, behold the works of the Lord, He makes wars to cease to the end of the earth; He breaks the bow and cuts the spear in two; He burns the chariots with fire. 'Cease striving and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.' The Lord of hosts is with us; The God of Jacob is our stronghold." God is over everything; He ends wars and destroys the tools of war. Let us cease striving and know that Almighty God is God. Let us know that He is with us, watching over us, and that in our suffering He gives us grace.

The word in Greek is charis (the ch is a flemmy sound like "Bach"). In this context it carries the connotation of God's kindness, influencing the souls of people to bring them closer to Christ, but more on this in the next few posts.

We have hope in suffering because God is the source of grace.


Fight the lion, 1 Peter 5.1-11

TO GOD ALONE BE THE GLORY!