Romans 5:1-5

I really like Romans 5. I think it's one of my favorite chapters in Scripture. I'm sure I don't understand all of what it says, but what I do understand is quite encouraging. I read just the first five verses recently and I noticed how rich they are. I'd like you to read them too:

"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. 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."
[Romans 5:1-5]

There is so much in this passage. Here are a few things that stick out to me:

We are justified. For those who have believed in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of their sins, we're right with God.
We have peace with God. This justification leads to peace. Real peace. Peace because our eternity is secure! When we are right with God, we no longer have to fear His wrath, and instead, we can look forward to eternity with Him.
We stand in grace. The word "stand" really caught my attention. We're IN grace. It's not something we experience one, but we stand in it all the time. God's grace is all around us.
We rejoice. Because we have hope we can delight in God and all He has done for us in the gospel.
We rejoice in suffering. What? Suffering is hard, right? And it can be very hard to rejoice when things are hard. But our reason for rejoicing doesn't change when suffering comes. Even when things are hard, we have the same hope and the same reason for rejoicing.
God uses suffering to grow us. He teaches us through hard times and He helps us love Him more.

What good news! In Christ we have justification, we have hope and peace, we have grace, and we have a reason to rejoice in all circumstances.

I actually made a poster with Romans 5:1-5 on it, and I'd like to share it with you to look at and download if you want. You can download it right here.

And here's what it looks like!

I hope you enjoy the poster and are encouraged by this Scripture passage. Have a great day!