How God’s love can shine through your tough times
Has it been a tough time for you lately?
It makes you feel like God doesn’t love you anymore, right?
Wrong.
His love shows up the greatest in the tough times.
“We also have joy with our troubles because we know that these troubles produce patience. And patience produces character, and character produces hope. This hope will never disappoint us because God has poured out his love to fill our hearts.” (Rom. 5: 3-5, NCV)
How can troubles, tribulations, pressures, and afflictions fill our hearts with God’s love?
1. Troubles produce PATIENCE.
Tough times produce endurance. The word for “troubles” (thlipsis) means to “squeeze, compress.” It is used for a woman's contractions when birthing a baby.
To be spiritually and emotionally “soft” is not a good thing. God knows that as we face adversity and pressure, we are transformed into people of strength and endurance.
God’s love will give you the strength, endurance, and patience to overcome any obstacle.
2. Patience produces CHARACTER.
The more consistent you are in overcoming pressures and tribulations, the more a “character” forms.
“Character” is “proven integrity.”
Tests that are passed prove integrity. In Job’s trial, he “held fast to his INTEGRITY.” He demonstrated character.
If you are in a “tribulation,” I want to encourage you to keep moving forward and overcome it.
An outdoor statute stays right where it is, even in rainstorms and hurricanes. It has “character.”
Let that be you.
3. Character produces HOPE.
When you go through a trial and demonstrate character, your “hope” starts rising! You have watched the grace and faithfulness of God bring you through a deep trial, and “He will do it again!”
Don’t lose hope.
Remember how God has brought you through difficulties, pressures, and circumstances. Be filled with HOPE today that everything is going to be alright!
4. Hope receives God’s LOVE.
Now, you are starting to believe again that God loves you. Hope makes room for love.
The “bottom line” in any trial is “God loves me.”
Say it 15-20 times daily when walking through a trial, a test, or a tribulation. “God loves me.”
His love is “poured out in our hearts” by the Holy Spirit. Close your eyes and drink deeply of His love for you. You are His child, His favored son or daughter.
The love of God will bring you through any storm or test!
Trials bring endurance.
Endurance brings character.
Character brings hope.
Hope receives love.
THAT is “how God’s love can shine through your tough times!”
