Re:Verse passage – 1 Peter 5:7-14 (day three)
“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.”
Do spiritual characteristics – those qualities the Bible often calls “gifts” – ever show up where no suffering has occurred? Possibly – probably, even – but the consistent witness of the New Testament is that spiritual gifts are the residue of suffering. When suffering passes, gentleness – or faithfulness or patience or joy or courage or kindness or generosity or leadership or love – remains. These things increase and suffering loses its power to terrorize you. In this way, you move toward perfection, confirmation, strength, and steadfast confidence. The actual experience of suffering catalyzes the formation of the Spirit’s attributes in you. This is grace – the very word translated as “gift.”
