“Hope maketh not ashamed , for the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit.” Romans 5:5
The verb for “shed abroad” consists of a Greek “Perfect passive indicative” of ekcheō –meaning to pour out.”
On this verse we read comments,
“And how can this hope of glory, which as believers we cherish, put us to shame, when we feel God Himself, by His Spirit given to us, drenching our hearts in sweet, all-subduing sensations of His wondrous love to us in Christ Jesus?” JFB
We now approach the glorious theme of the Life of the Justified. “…. It is to appear as a state warmed with eternal Love; irradiated with the prospect of glory. In it the man, knit up with Christ his Head, his Bridegroom, his all, yields himself with joy to the God who has received him. In the living power of the heavenly Spirit, who perpetually delivers him from himself, he obeys, prays, works, and suffers, in a liberty which is only not yet that of heaven, and in which he is maintained to the end by Him who has planned his full personal salvation from eternity to eternity.” Expositors
It is the gracious work of the blessed Spirit to shed abroad the love of God in the hearts of all the saints. The love of God, that is, the sense of God’s love to us, drawing out love in us to him again. Or, The great effects of his love: (1.) Special grace; and, (2.) The pleasant gust or sense of it. It is shed abroad, as sweet ointment, perfuming the soul, as rain watering it and making it fruitful. Matthew Henry
However,
” …we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience; And patience, experience; and experience, hope.” Romans 5:3-4
“Men have been known to endure every form of privation, torture, and death, without a murmur and without even visible emotion, merely because they deemed it unworthy of them to sink under unavoidable ill. But this proud, stoical hardihood has nothing in common with the grace of patience.” JFB
Here’s a quote from Oswald Chambers,
“patience is not the same as endurance because the heart of endurance is frequently stoical,
where the heart of patience is a blazing love
that sees intuitively and waits God’s time in perfect confidence.”
Chambers goes on to say, it takes a long time to realize what Jesus is after, and the person you need most patience with is yourself.” God takes deliberate time with us, he does not hurry, because we can only appreciate his point of view by a long discipline.”
Friends, the tribulation of my journey, an enforced trauma which eventuates with patience toward myself, explains love. Yes love cares about me; about my weakness, and instead of activating soul-powered disciplines in my painful experiences, teaches me to fall into the arms of love, in my deepest times of need. Yes, love works here as my hidden shames are being overcome by the all -knowing, all-loving, Lover of my Soul.
In closing, The Apostle Paul teaches us to “stand fast in the liberty wherein Christ has set us free, and be not entangled again in the yoke of bondage.” Beloved, simply stay in the place that intimacy has honed in our hearts. Liberty is patience soaked in love. It is my patience, it is my love.
Finally, “we love him because he first loved us.” See first John 4: 10 Let’s never place our Christianity in the secluded box of discipline or stoical power. Our life is not a call to power, but a call to His love. love ya
