From the Pastor – June

As Christians we are not exempt from suffering, challenges, and difficulties. Life can be painful and complicated and sometimes we feel like quitting. There are physical ailments, emotional strife, and real spiritual battles; as a result of sin, our relationship with God is broken and our ability to live our lives in God’s image often fractures our relationships with others.

The Apostle Paul reminds us that we have peace with God through faith…

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but 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. Romans 5:1-5

In the gymnasium, resistance training involves adding weights to your exercises to produce strength and endurance. Physical endurance is the ability to repeat an activity without getting fatigued, without quitting, or giving up. To increase endurance, a personal trainer will recommend 15 -20 repetitions of an exercise at a low volume of weight. But spiritual endurance doesn’t come from what we do, it comes from what Christ has done for us. Christ died on the cross to restore our relationship with God the Father; through Jesus we have access to the Father’s grace through faith (Romans 5:2).

Rather than asking God “why” you’re suffering; we can reflect on how God will enable the suffering to help us. By faith we can rejoice when we experience suffering, because God will use the suffering to help us beyond our imagination. Through trials and suffering God is teaching us to endure, He’s training us to trust Him, He’s instructing us how to pray, He’s molding our character perhaps even pulling off the training wheels to help us place our hope in Him. By faith, we can hold on to the promise that Christ will always be with us (Matthew 28:20).

“We cling to Jesus, but most more important, when we have nothing left, Jesus clings to us.” (Matthew Harrison, LCMS President, The Comfort of the Lutheran Doctrine, CPH 2026, p. 123). What Jesus said to His disciples, He says to you: “I chose you. You did not choose me.” (John 15:16).

Love, like a precious metal, is refined in the fiery trials; Paul reminds us that during times of suffering, God’s love is poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit (Romans 5:5). “Suffering produces endurance!”

Pastor Schuldheisz