Devotion #3: Rejoicing In Suffering

I am going to get right to the point with our topic today: we need to rejoice in suffering. Right off the bat, many of us would be thinking that rejoicing when we are suffering is one of the most backwards things we have ever heard. How can anyone feel any joy in suffering? That seems impossible and just plain idiotic to even propose that. That thought process is exactly what the world would say to this phrase, but what does God say about it? 

Romans 5:3-5 (ESVUK) says, “More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that 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.” 

1. What does it mean that “suffering produces endurance”? How would it produce “endurance”?  In a world full of sin, suffering and heartbreak are bound to happen to all of us. Some are more severe, some more frequent, some mental, some physical, but the point is that it is inevitable. Yet, when faced with that inevitability, what do we go to?  

2. In full honesty, how often do you go to things that will make you happy in the moment when faced with turmoil rather than turn to Jesus?  

When we “rejoice in our sufferings,” we are not just bottling up our emotions or feelings toward what is happening. We are meant to mourn, we can lament, and we can feel sorrow or loss, but the idea of rejoicing is praising the God who is always with you in the midst of the suffering. We rejoice because we have a relationship with Jesus, the One who took the punishment we deserved because of our sins and saved us from ourselves. He is the One that brings us true joy, and He is the One that we are able to go to when we endure suffering.  

3. Knowing this, how do you approach “rejoice in our sufferings” differently? 

Suffering will happen. Sin is very real, and the world is broken because of our actions. Yet, God is so good that even in the midst of it, He still came to save us. We can rejoice in that no matter what is happening around us.