Read: Romans 8:23-25

This passage requires a bit of digging into because at first glance it seems way off base. I have observed one thing that keeps us from placing our hope in God is sickness and suffering. That is the million dollar question: Why does God allow it?

Well, I don’t have space in this post to dig into that question, but I do have this to encourage you. When we come to Christ, he immediately gives us a welcome pack. Included in this welcome pack is:

• The Holy Spirit – he is the deposit that guarantees a future life of unimaginable glory!
• Adoption – we are adopted as children of the most high God with full rights of a natural born child.
• Super Bodies – we are promised a new body that isn’t subject to illness or suffering!

Right now, for a little while, we live in bodies that get sick, they have weakness, they are fading away. But all of these promises were given to us so that we might HOPE in what is yet to come. Paul goes on to say that if we already have it, we don’t need to hope for it. But since we are waiting, we wait with confident, expectant patience. It is an already, but not yet situation. We already experience the Holy Spirit, but not like we will later. We already know that we are a child of God, but later we will have full access to all of God’s riches. Already we know that he heals our bodies, but we don’t yet know bodies that don’t break down. Already, but not yet.

Continue reading in Romans 8 for more encouraging words from Paul regarding the provision God makes for us while we are waiting. And let these words renew your HOPE!