Friday 17 May 2013

Friday Reading: Romans 8:18-25

Key Verse: Romans 8:23
23  And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.

Devotion:
How many times do you look at what you are going through and think “why am I suffering so much as a Christian” or “why should I have to go through this all just because I say I’m a Christian”? We like to think of ourselves as being very safe and secure as Christians because we see this picture in our minds of us being safely held in the arms of God – so what can ever touch us!

Well, as Christians, we still live in the same world as the rest of the world. We may turn our backs on many things that the world embraces so that we should not have to suffer those things, but we will still have to face up to the same hardships as the world in many cases. We then may even have to face up to more hardships because we dare to tell others that we are Christians! But when we compare all of the suffering that we may come up against with what we will receive with Christ in heaven – how can we ever look at them as being hardships again.

Oh yes it is very easy to say that when we are not suffering, but when you have to face many things going wrong and you get to the point when you don’t know whether you can carry on or not… take a short while to think about what we have in store ahead and come back and visit this same question again… While we can see answers to questions and ways out of troubles we don’t have hope, we have a future; but when we cannot see any way out or forward then we have to hope in the unseen. That is the start of our faith because then we will start asking God for the things that only He can do in our lives. Whilst we may not get the answers we want right then and there, we will be very surprised at what comes our way.

God is a God who answers prayers in ways that we cannot even imagine. He is a God that wants us to know that this is what He can do and what He does do. So when we find out that our prayers are not being answered in the instant that we want them to be, just maybe He is holding off so that we can know that it is Him and not circumstance, or maybe He is waiting to make sure that we are sure that we are asking for the right things in our life!

Points to Ponder:
Do you suffer as a Christian?

Are you waiting on God?