Faithbase

Good morning, everybody. I wanted to take some time to kind of touch on what I talked about in my last video. I wanted to dig a little bit deeper into it. I don't think we covered enough about sufferings, right? We covered how suffering, Paul says, suffering produces endurance and endurance builds character. Character builds hope, hope in Christ. What exactly do we mean by endurance, right? Well, endurance actually reverts back to the, in the Hebrew terms, hip, hippo money. I'm pretty sure I'm getting that wrong, but what it, the translation is it's an intense desire in this case for God, a desire to overcome the trial of waiting, awaiting it as determined and victorious because it trusts in God. This isn't a passive thing. This isn't a passive thing. We just sit back and wait, but it's, it's the kind of spirit that can triumph over pain and sufferings to achieve the goal. And what is the goal? Endurance is something that comes from God and is focused on God. Look to Romans 15, five for that. If Christians endure without complaining or growing weary or respondent is because God enables it, not because they are extraordinarily heroic. We go through our sufferings as Paul says, we look to Paul's life, right? He says that Christ's life was characterized by, by suffering for the benefit of others. Christ came to die for our sins. So Paul is suffering in the service of Christ is also endured for the benefit of others. Multiple times throughout scripture, Paul talks about his sufferings. He repeatedly emphasizes to the Corinthians and the first Corinthians that his labor and hardships are for the purpose of advancing the gospel and to strengthen believers. And we're going to get into that in these next couple of videos. I want to talk about it, how in Philippians Paul talks in chapter one, he talks about how his, his sufferings, him writing from prison, how that's actually working to advance the gospel because here's what happens when other believers see us as believers continuing to push through and endure and, and, and, and strengthen our way and utilize God and focus on God to get us through our struggles, not just sit back and throw a pity party and woe is me, but actually take that, take that spirit of, of, of victory and triumph over the pain because we are faithful and trust God to get us through that. When they see that they're inspired to do the same. At the same time, when nonbelievers see that, they look at us like, what do they have that I don't, how are they so, how are they able to push themselves through this, these intense struggles and tribulations? How are they able to do that? And then they ask and we get to tell them, let me tell you about a man named Jesus. Endurance is not passive. It's a spirit of triumph and victory because our trust, our faith is in God to get us through these struggles, that word endurance and expecting, waiting and intense desire for God to allow him to use this to not only grow us and strengthen us in our faith, but so that others can see him through our struggles for a purpose. We're going to get more into this in these next couple of videos. I really want to dive into struggles and sufferings, so stay tuned for my next videos. Stay frosty mis amigos and never forget, Jesus loves you.