Have the Hope of Glory and Enjoy Christ in our Sufferings to be Saved in His Life

As believers in Christ, we have hope, and we boast because of the hope of the glory of God; as we enjoy Christ in our sufferings, we are being saved in His life for the building up of the church as the Body of Christ, the corporate expression of God. Hallelujah!

We need to see that the result of our justification is not only that we are justified before God and now we have peace with God but even more, that we are brought into the full enjoyment of God in Christ as our life.

What is justification? It is God’s action in approving us according to His standard of righteousness.

Our righteousness as believers in Christ is not a condition that we possess in ourselves or that we attain to as we do good works. Rather, our righteousness is a person to whom we are joined – the living Christ Himself!

When we believe into Christ, we receive God’s forgiveness, and God justifies us by making Christ our righteousness and by clothing us with Christ as our robe of righteousness.

The result of our justification is the full enjoyment of God in Christ as our life. Wow, how about that!

In Rom. 5:1-11, we see that the result of our justification is embodied in six wonderful things. First, God justified us sinners and reconciled us, His enemies, to Himself, and His love was poured out into our hearts.

No matter what happens to us or around us, we can exercise our God-given spirit of love to enjoy God, keep ourselves in the love of God, and overcome the degradation in today’s church!

Praise the Lord, we have obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand (Rom. 5:2). We stand in grace, enjoying God in Christ as our life and life supply, and we walk in peace.

Praise the Lord, we have peace toward God through our Lord Jesus Christ! Our way today is in peace and of peace; we do things in peace with God and in peace with man.

Here, in the realm of grace, we boast in God and we also boast in our tribulations, for we know that tribulation produces endurance, and endurance produces approvedness, and approvedness produces hope.

Through tribulation, we can enjoy Christ and endurance is produced. Tribulation is the incarnation of grace as the sweet visitation of grace.

Tribulation issues in endurance, and endurance produces approvedness. We need approvedness. We are not suitable for the Lord’s work, but we are being tested and approved by God as we go through tribulations and obtain His approvedness.

Approvedness Produces Hope, and we Boast because of the Hope of the Glory of God

Along with approvedness, we have hope (Rom. 5:4), and we boast because of the hope of the glory of God (v. 2). Tribulation produces endurance, endurance produces approvedness, and approvedness produces hope.

Although we stand in grace and walk in peace, we are not yet fully in glory, which is God Himself expressed.

However, we know that our momentary lightness of affliction works out for us, more and more surpassingly, an eternal weight of glory (2 Cor. 4:17). Hallelujah!

Today we go through sufferings and afflictions, and there’s a momentary pain and suffering that we experience; however, we believe that this works out for us an eternal weight of glory.

We are learning to enjoy Christ in our sufferings.

Praise the Lord, the God of all grace has called us into His eternal glory in Christ Jesus; here and now we are enjoying Christ as our hope of glory (1 Pet. 5:10; 1 Thes. 2:12; Col. 1:27; Phil. 3:21).

Praise the Lord, the God of all grace, who has called us into His eternal glory in Christ Jesus, after we have suffered a little while, will Himself perfect, establish, strengthen, and ground us.

As we go through suffering, we are enjoying the indwelling Christ, and we are being perfected, established, strengthened, and grounded.

The fact that God is of all grace means that there are riches of the bountiful supply of the divine life in many aspects being ministered to us in many steps of the divine operation on and in us in God’s economy! Amen!

First, God called us, and the last step is for Him to glorify us, for He has called us into His eternal glory.

Now between His calling and His glorification, we enjoy God’s loving care while He is disciplining us, and He is carrying out a perfecting, establishing, strengthening, and grounding work in us. Hallelujah!

The God of all grace went through the processes of incarnation, human living, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension for Him to accomplish the complete and full redemption so that He may bring us, His redeemed people, into an organic union with Himself.

Now we are joined to the Lord as one spirit (1 Cor. 6:17), and we can participate in the riches of the Triune God as our enjoyment.

In this Christ, through His all-inclusive redemption and based on all His achievements, God can be the God of all grace to call us into His eternal glory and to perfect, establish, strengthen, and ground us in the Triune God (1 Pet. 1:1-2).

On the one hand, we go through sufferings and afflictions; on the other hand, we enjoy the indwelling Christ as all grace, and we are going toward God’s glorious goal, which is our glorification.

This all is accomplished not by our efforts but through His all grace, which is the true grace of God (1 Pet. 5:12).

Today the Lord is leading us, His many sons, into glory by daily sanctifying us (Heb. 2:10-11) and we are daily being transformed from glory to glory (2 Cor. 3:16-18; 4:16).

As we keep our hearts turned to the Lord to behold the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, we are daily being transformed from glory to glory until we are glorified!

Today, we have the hope of being glorified, and we boast in the hope of the glory of God (Rom. 5:4).

This is the hope that one day we will all be brought into the glory of God. This glory is coming, and we cannot even fathom how this will be, for nothing compares with it.

Just as the electricity is glorified or expressed through the illumination of a bright light bulb, so we will be glorified to express the Triune God corporately!

The invisible Triune God is doing a wonderful work in us, His believers, to make us His corporate expression for His shining in this universe! Praise the Lord!

Nothing can compare with this glory (see Rom. 8:18; 2 Cor. 4:17; 1 Thes. 2:12; Heb. 2:10; 1 Pet. 5:10).

Today we enjoy God because of the hope of this coming glory, and we hope for the glory to come! Praise the Lord!

Lord Jesus, thank You for working in us not only approvedness but also hope! Hallelujah, we are boasting because of the hope of the glory of God! Amen, Lord, may we realise that our momentary lightness of affliction works out for us, more and more surpassingly, an eternal weight of glory! Do this in us, Lord. Work Your glory into us until You fully glorify us. Praise the Lord, the God of all grace, has called us into His eternal glory in Christ Jesus! Amen, Lord, thank You for coming into us as the hope of glory, and we can enjoy You in our spirit as our hope of glory! We exercise our spirit today to enjoy You and partake of the riches of Your glory in spirit. Praise the Lord, He is leading us, His many sons, into glory by daily sanctifying us and transforming us. Amen, Lord, we want to behold You with an unveiled face so that we may be transformed from glory to glory into Your glorious image! Hallelujah, Christ is in us, the hope of glory!

As we Enjoy Christ in our Sufferings, we are being Saved in His Life for the Building up of the Church

The fifth blessing of the result of our justification is that we are being saved in His life (Rom. 5:10). As we enjoy Christ in our sufferings, we are being saved in the life of Christ for the accomplishing of the organic goal of God’s dynamic salvation!

This goal is the producing and building up of the organic Body of Christ expressed in the local churches.

In the local churches, we enjoy the rich grace of the Lord and here the God of peace crushes Satan under our feet for His glorious expression and for the display of His victory (Rom. 5:10; 12:5; 16:1, 4-5, 16, 20). Praise the Lord!

The result of our justification is truly wonderful, for through being justified by God, we are brought into the full enjoyment of God in Christ as our life day by day.

Romans chapters 5 through 16 speak of God’s organic salvation.

Even though we believers in Christ have been saved initially, for our spirit was saved through regeneration, we still need to be saved in the life of God from so many things in our daily living.

We all need to be saved daily from so many negative things.

We need to be saved from our temper and our self. How can we be saved from our temper, which we cannot change, and from our self, which no one can deal with? It is by enjoying Christ in the midst of sufferings; this will cause us to be saved in His life.

As we enjoy Christ in our sufferings, we need the saving in His life.

We need to be saved in life from the besetting sin, that is, we need to be freed from the law of sin and of death (Rom. 8:2).

How can we be freed from the law of sin and of death? It is by being saved in His life through setting our mind on the spirit and being in Christ Jesus.

We need to be saved in His life from being worldly; we need to be sanctified so that we are not fashioned according to this age but have our mind renewed to be transformed and express God (Rom. 12:2).

We need to be saved in His life from our natural being; this means that we need to be transformed from our natural life so that we live by the divine life to express God.

We need to be saved in His life from being self-like, that is, we need to be saved from the expression of the self by being conformed to the image of Christ (Rom. 8:28-29).

So many times we realise that we still express the self, not Christ; we need to be saved from expressing the self by being saved in His life so that we may be conformed to the image of Christ, the firstborn Son of God.

Finally, we need to be saved in His life from being individualistic, that is, we need to be built up with others into the Body of Christ (Rom. 12).

How individualistic we are in our natural man! How much we need to be saved in His life so that we may be built up with the saints in the Body of Christ!

Through justification, we have been brought into the realm of enjoyment; in this realm we stand in grace, we walk in peace, we suffer in hope, and we enjoy God in our tribulations.

As we are suffering and at the same time are enjoying Christ, we are being saved in His life. This is our need today – we need to be saved in His life much more!

Yes, we are suffering, and yes, we are learning to enjoy Christ in our sufferings, but at the same time, we need to let the Lord save us in His life until we are just like Him, expressing God corporately as the Body of Christ!

This is the issue of justification – enjoying God in Christ as our life for His corporate expression on the earth!

Lord Jesus, save us much more in Your life today! Oh, what a blessing it is for us believers in Christ to be daily saved in the life of Christ until we become the same as He is in life, nature, expression, and function but not in the Godhead! Amen, Lord, we want to enjoy Christ in our sufferings so that we may be saved in the life of Christ! Save us much more in Your life for the accomplishing of the organic goal of God’s dynamic salvation. Save us in Your life from all the negative things, from our self, and from our temper. Save us in Your life from the besetting sin and from the law of sin and of death. Save us in Your life from being worldly and from our natural being. Amen, Lord, transform us and conform us to Your image! Save us in Your life from being self-like and from being individualistic. Amen, Lord, we want to stand in grace, walk in peace, suffer in hope, and enjoy God in our tribulation! Hallelujah, while we’re suffering and enjoying, we are being saved in the life of Christ!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration for this article/sharing comes from the Word of God, the enjoyment in the ministry, a sharing by the brothers in the message for this week, and portions from, Life-study of Romans, msg. 11, by Witness Lee, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Chapters 5 through 8 of Romans – the Kernel of the Bible (2025 ICSC), week 2, The Result of Our Justification— the Full Enjoyment of God in Christ as Our Life.
• Similar articles on this topic:
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  – 9 Crucial Practices for Building Up a Vital Christian Life, via, Holding to Truth in Love.
  – Suffering for producing and building up the Body, a portion from, The Experience of Christ, Chapter 16, by Witness Lee.
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• Hymns on this topic:
  – Christ is the hope of glory, He is God’s mystery; / He shares with me God’s fulness and brings God into me. / He comes to make me blended with God in every way, / That I may share His glory with Him for aye. / Christ is the hope of glory, redemption full is He: / Redemption to my body, from death to set it free, / He comes to make my body a glorious one to be / And swallow death forever in victory. (Hymns #949 stanzas 2-3)
  – Blest assurance! God has fully ordered / Every matter by His sovereign hand; / Every person (though we see so dimly), / Every thing’s according to His plan. / Every trial is but the Father’s answer / To the groaning of the Spirit’s prayer; / May He gain in every tribulation, / Until we Christ’s glory fully share. (Hymns #1210 stanza 3)
  – Sing praise to Christ Who lives in us, / The God of our salvation; / Who saves us by His life divine, / And not by regulation; / After we’ve worked—done all we can, / His life has power to change a man: / His life divine can change us. / He saves us to the uttermost / By His life-giving power; / Transfusing Himself into us, / He saves us hour by hour. / He saved the lost by coming in, / He’s saving now from more than sin: / He’s saving us to glory! (Hymns #1130 stanzas 1-2)