<p>1:5 <i>These are proof that God&rsquo;s judgment is righteous, and you are enduring them to the end you may be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you also suffer</i>- That &quot;we must through much tribulation enter the Kingdom&quot; was Paul's standard teaching (Acts 14:22). We are only accounted worthy of the Kingdom by the grace of God's plan of imputing righteousness to us. And yet because He counts us worthy, He works in our lives to make us in reality what we are by the status He has granted us. Romans 8 caps the previous teaching about imputed righteousness by teaching about the work of the Spirit in our hearts and the purpose of suffering- because these are the means by which we are brought in practice to that status of rightness with God which has been counted to us. And in 1:11 Paul uses the same word in praying that God would count them worthy of the calling he has given them; and this again is the language of Romans 8, where the predestined calling of God is cited as the great example of salvation by grace. This prayer for them to be 'counted worthy' as therefore uttered in full awareness that the process would require suffering on their part, which they had to endure. When we pray for another to be saved, to be in God's Kingdom, we are in fact praying that they shall pass through and endure &quot;much tribulation&quot;. This is why our response to suffering now is a foretaste of judgment. See on 1 Pet. 3:16.</p>