Summer 2026: ‘Wildfires’ – The Holy Spirit, from Genesis to Revelation
This summer, we’ll immerse ourselves in the person and work of the Holy Spirit: from the first verses of Genesis, to the last verses of Revelation. Often the ‘forgotten’ part of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit is there at Creation, and also at the climax of the New Creation, throughout history revealing the reality of God’s presence and power to the world. So, let’s celebrate the Wildfire of the Holy Spirit, and continue to welcome His presence in our lives today!
Monday 3rd August – Ephesians 4:1-6 ‘The power of one’
The diversity of the worldwide church is extraordinary. Every culture and every society is included. In fact, in every country in the world there is at least one follower of Jesus – and for many, following this path to life comes at great personal cost.
The same is true of our buildings – look around my home town of Milton Keynes and you can see communities of Christians gathering everywhere. Just here in Walton we have churches meeting in every type of building: mediaeval, modern purpose-built worship centres, a number of schools and community centres – even, on occasions, the local pub. Church happens when Christians gather together, and the history of the church proves that this can happen anywhere – in caves, in prisons, in shopping centres and even on rubbish dumps, in the case of one church serving destitute people in Cairo.
But what holds us together? What are the things we can agree on, which represent the glue for this vast diversity of humanity? Here in Ephesians chapter 4, St. Paul gives us the vital clues. To start with, we all have a common calling: to ‘live a life worthy of the calling you have received’ (v1). As the first half of the book outlines, we share an identity: chosen children of God, forgiven and freed and brought into God’s family – and this calling stirs us to a grace-filled life of gratitude. A life marked by humility, gentleness, patience and love (v2).
But we also share common convictions, a core of truths that bind us together (vv4-6). We worship one God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We are part of one Body – the universal and worldwide family of God. We profess one faith in this glorious Trinitarian God, and (almost universally) acknowledge one special way of declaring and signifying our faith: baptism – in water and the Spirit.
This is the power of one – one hope for the world, and for ourselves. And it is noteworthy that Paul starts his list with the practical outworkings of our unity: one body – one group of people self-identifying and sharing together as followers of Jesus – filled with one Spirit: the power of God poured out into all of our hearts so that, as we saw a couple of days ago, we are now little temples where God’s presence dwells.
So, today let us celebrate what holds us together, what unites us as one big family of God stretching across the world. I like to picture it as millions of lights scattered across the globe worshipping the one true light of all. May it stir us both to gratitude and to prayer, and to renewed energy and vision to live a life worthy of the glorious calling we have received.
Saturday 1st August – Ephesians 3:14-21 ‘Ultimate purpose’
It’s easy to over-complicate faith. As we’ve journeyed through the wonderful presence and work of the Holy Spirit over the last few weeks, we’ve uncovered some glorious truths. We’ve seen how the Spirit has been around for eternity, co-existing with the Father and the Son in a beautiful relationship of mutual love. How the Spirit was breathed into us to give us life, and, though the image of God became scarred in humans, how the work of Christ has renewed this breath of God, so that the Spirit dwells in us again.
We’ve marvelled at the fruit of the Spirit, the gifts of the Spirit, the wisdom imparted by the Spirit – and how all this was promised centuries ago, and sealed at Pentecost. Now the work of the Spirit is not limited to a few individuals but freely available to all God’s people. Because of Christ, the way to God is clear and we can enjoy spiritual blessings for all eternity.
But what does it all boil down to? St Paul’s amazing prayer in today’s passage somehow encapsulates all of this glory, all of this wisdom, into a few profound phrases, and one simple request to our great God. What is the power of the Spirit for? Ultimately, that Christ may dwell in our hearts through faith (v17). The Spirit always points us to Jesus, and as we offer our weak and limited faith in Christ to God, so the Spirit works in power to seal this faith in our hearts. Jesus dwells with us and we slowly grasp the great depths of that love (v18). Indeed we start to know something that surpasses knowledge (v19) – something so great, so transcendent, and yet implanted in us by the Spirit.
Life can be challenging, and if you’re anything like me, we often lack faith to believe in the power of prayer, in the truth that somehow everything will turn out alright. But as we let the Spirit move our hearts, as the love of Christ truly dwells there, warming us, transforming us, so we somehow seize faith to pray what must be one of the great blessings of all history – and may it be our prayer today as well:
‘Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.’
Friday 31st July – Ephesians 2:18-22 ‘The new temple’
When St Paul wrote his letter to the Ephesians it was still possible to walk around the glorious Second Temple in Jerusalem. Begun by Zerubbabel in 538BC, it was finally completed by Herod the Great (king at the time of Jesus’ birth) more than 500 years later, and its dimensions were vast for a complex of its time. The courtyard was almost 500 feet wide and 150 feet long, and the crowning glory at its heart – the Holy of Holies – was 90 feet high. It was almost a ‘city within a city’, with colonnades, accommodation for priests, libraries and courtrooms and other important areas.
This temple still formed the heart of Jewish worship. It was the place where God dwelt and met with His people. But with the coming of Jesus Christ, all that had changed. Jesus’ death and resurrection made it possible for us to know God in a new and deeper way. The temple curtain had been torn in two, signifying that, through Christ, all humanity had direct access to God. The temple was now Jesus’ own body (John 2:21).
The seal of this radical good news, as we saw yesterday, was the gift of the Spirit. It guarantees our access to God through Jesus (v18). If the ‘temple’ is where God dwells on earth, then Christians are now that temple, since the Spirit of God dwells in us (v22). We are the body of Christ – the new temple, the place where God meets with humanity.
But this is not just an individual experience – it is a corporate one, too. Christians forming communities become ‘temples’ dedicated to God. Our collective love and friendship, our desire to worship and follow God together, rise up to be a ‘holy temple in the Lord’ (v21). Jesus is the cornerstone, but as St Peter says elsewhere, using a lovely image, we are ‘living stones’ forming part of this temple (1 Peter 2:5) – each joined to the other, each playing our part in the structure.
As we reflect on this amazing truth that our bodies are each a temple, let’s also give thanks for the Church family too, and Christian communities everywhere – little temples where God meets with people. And you are a living stone in that structure! What sort of stone are you? Which stones are you next to? How can you display the presence of God to those looking at our particular temple?
Thursday 30th July – Ephesians 1:13-17 ‘The heavenly down-payment’
For many hundreds of years, a wax seal has been used to mark letters of importance. A seal indicates both the sender and the authority attached to the contents of the letter. You may be surprised to learn that the practice is still in use today. For example, when Harry and Meghan got married in 2018 they required a royal ‘Instrument of Consent’. This is the official document giving the late Queen’s permission for them to wed. Like all royal documents it was marked with The Great Seal – proof that the Queen had authorised it and given her blessing.
St. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians was probably the only letter he wrote which was sent to multiple locations – we have a surviving manuscript addressing the letter to Laodicea as well as to Ephesus. This makes it unique, and incredibly important to biblical theology, since we can reasonably assume that Paul here is condensing two or three decades of church leadership and deep thinking into one profound letter which summarises The Things You Really Need To Know as a Christian.
It’s really all about identity – who we are in Christ. When we truly grasp just how much Jesus has done for us, how precious we are to God and what our salvation means, then we are empowered and energised to live the kind of life we were always meant to live. Ephesians is one of those little books to come back to throughout our lives – it will never fail to yield fresh treasures and inspiration.
But here, near the start, Paul addresses a simple, but very important question: how can we know if we’re part of God’s people? If we’re forgiven and secure in His love? Chapter 1 sets out many compelling reasons: how God chose us and adopted us into His family, how Jesus set us free through the cross, how God’s grace demonstrates the wisdom of God. But here in this short passage he gives us a very concrete proof: God has made a down-payment in our lives. How? The presence of His Holy Spirit in us. The fact that we have the Spirit in our lives is the deposit which ‘guarantees our inheritance’. What we experience now in part is proof that the full reality will be ours eternally.
It is something God promised – as we saw in the early days of these reflections. It is also our ‘seal’. Since a seal denotes the authority of the giver, the Holy Spirit represents the authority of none other than God Himself declaring that we are His, that we are saved and chosen and set free to be part of His family forever.
Seals are also unique – they tell us something about the sender. The Holy Spirit in our lives manifests the unique love and power of God. There is nothing like the Spirit – and this seal slowly transforms our lives in a Christlike direction.
No wonder that the first of Paul’s prayers (v17) is to keep asking that we receive more and more of this Spirit. Why not pray that prayer today, and give thanks that you – yes, you – are sealed by the Holy Spirit in the love and grace of Christ.
Wednesday 29th July – Galatians 5:25-26 ‘Keeping in step’
On Albert Bridge which crosses the River Thames in Battersea, near where we used to live, you’ll find a plaque: ‘All troops must break step when marching over this bridge.’ The story behind this is that in 1831 the Broughton Suspension Bridge (now in Salford, Manchester) collapsed as a troop of 74 men marched across. Investigations put this down to the effects of mechanical resonance caused by multiple feet landing on the bridge at once. The army subsequently issued an order that troops should always ‘break step’ when crossing a bridge.
There’s something powerful about keeping in step. It might be bad for bridges, but it’s good for our spiritual lives. In today’s reading, St. Paul gives us this exact advice when it comes to the Holy Spirit: let’s keep in step (v25). Let’s match our strides to what God the Holy Spirit is saying to us, and how He is directing our lives.
It’s significant that this simple but immensely important advice comes straight after the famous teaching on the fruit of the Spirit. Let’s be honest: it’s impossible to grow all nine fruit of the Spirit at once, most of us think we’re doing well if we’re growing in one or two at any point in time. So this is very wise advice: in effect Paul is saying, take note of where God is at work in you, what particular areas of your life are growing or changing – and keep in step. Follow the Spirit’s lead. The best thing for any follower of Jesus is to bless what God is already doing. If we do that, we’ll never go far wrong.
There’s also a secondary implication. To see God at work in our lives brings us great joy. But sometimes we can fall into the trap of giving ourselves too much credit. We see growth, but it brings us pride, not humble thanks. So Paul follows up with a timely reminder not to get either conceited at our own growth, or envious of others’ (v26). This was a trap the young church in Galatia was prone to: Paul had already had to warn them in chapter 3 about trying to achieve by their own efforts what is only a work of the Spirit (3:3).
The Christian life is a beautiful blend of the general and the particular. We live by general principles which apply to all of human life, but we also seek the Lord for the particular things where God is most at work at any point in time. Sometimes the Spirit’s step speeds up, sometimes it slows down. Maybe sometimes it stands still to direct our gaze at something important. Sometimes the Spirit leads us through lush meadows, at other times through harsh deserts. We step up the mountain and down again into the valley. But the advice is always the same: keep in step. This is the key to true and abundant life.
Where is God calling you to ‘keep in step’ today?
Tuesday 28th July – Galatians 5:16-23 ‘The fruit of the Spirit’
How do you test the value of anything? It’s a good question to ask, and nowadays we have lots of clever analytical tools to do just that for almost any type of situation. But Jesus’ answer to this question was disarmingly simple: look at the fruit it produces. Is it good or bad? Is there lots of it, or not much at all? Does it look good, but taste horrible? Or vice versa? The point is: the fruit tells you what the tree is like. It’s a good way of evaluating a project or an investment of time and resources.
It’s also a pretty good test of a life – look at the fruit!
In our passage today, St. Paul likens this process of growing in Christlike character to growing fruit. Indeed, he gives what is produced by the work of the Spirit in our hearts and lives a name which surely picks up Jesus’ own teaching: the fruit of the Spirit. He, like Jesus, encourages us to focus on the inner life and not external behaviour: get the heart right, and the actions will follow. So, these kinds of fruit are attitudes or virtues of character: love, joy, peace, and so on. If we develop such virtues, we can assume that these fruit will in turn produce Christlike words and actions.
We can also reflect today that using this idea of ‘fruit’ also suggests some other things to us about the formation of character:
Time Fruit doesn’t grow overnight, it takes weeks or months. I love pears: but I get frustrated by having to wait a week or so for those pears we bought at the greengrocers or the supermarket to get really ripe and juicy. They seem to just sit and look at me in the fruit bowl. How long does it take? How hard can it be? Much more so, of course, with the months and years to make any real headway in forming a godly character.
Cultivation Good fruit grows when it is looked after. Followers of Jesus needs their own spiritual fertiliser (bible study and prayer) and pesticide (spiritual disciplines and practices), the methods of cultivation which will produce great fruit.
Fragility Fruit is easily spoiled. Any Christian knows how easy it is for hard-won gains in character to be lost by moments of weakness, or periods of inattention to growth.
Taste Good fruit tastes good! The formation of a truly Christ-like character is one which ought to appeal to others, much as Jesus was constantly surrounded by people drawn by his love and grace.
Single source It is ultimately the fruit – singular – of the Spirit. One tree, one source – the Spirit of Jesus, manifesting his character in different ways. Arguably, Paul also put love first as the greatest of all the virtues, and the one which binds the others together. He said as much elsewhere (Colossians 3:14, 1 Corinthians 13:13).
So, the fruit of the Spirit proves to be a lovely metaphor for growing more like Jesus. And a realistic one, too. I’m sure most of us have felt that frustration concerning the time it takes to grow real virtues. But bite into your favourite fruit today and you’ll know that it’s worth it! May God grant us grace to keep cultivating the fruit of the Spirit in our lives today.
Monday 27th July – 2 Corinthians 3:7-18 ‘Ever increasing glory’
When I was a student, I used to earn my money in the long summers working for a builder. Sometimes the work would be nice and easy – glossing outdoor window frames in the sunshine, with factor 15 and the radio on. Other times the work would be much harder. My least favourite job of all was fitting plasterboard ceilings. As the labourer, my job was to hold the board in position above my head while the fitter screwed in the fixings. Even now, I can still remember that feeling of a great weight above my head push, push, pushing down on me, while the muscles in my arms burned. I earned my minimum wage that day!
This idea of a weight pushing down on us is unexpectedly relevant for today’s passage. You’ll have noticed that the key word is ‘glory’, or its variant ‘glorious’ – in Greek, it’s doxa and it appears 11 times. But what is glory?
The original Old Testament word which doxa copies is ‘kabod’ and it literally means ‘weight’. So when we talk about glory, what we mean is literally the ‘weight’ of God falling on us. Obviously, a spiritual being doesn’t weigh anything, but the sense is that when God’s glory appears it feels like a presence pushing down on us, you could say pushing us to our knees in worship and adoration. On many occasions, when the glory of God ‘fell’ (significant word that), people often went further and fell on their faces in awe (e.g. Leviticus 9:23-24, 2 Chronicles 7:1-3). The weight of God has that effect.
In fact, the reference from Leviticus is helpful, as this was the occasion when Moses dedicated the original tabernacle, and Paul here in this passage describes how Moses had to wear a veil in the presence of God. But now – and what amazing news this is! – because of Christ and His indwelling Spirit, our access to God is no longer veiled. We can experience His manifest presence directly (v16) and not just occasionally, but on an ongoing basis (v11).
The tangible sense of God’s presence, or by extension anything that points to God’s presence, is how we use the word ‘glory’ now. And this is available to us! No wonder Paul gets excited and indicates the sort of effect this kind of realisation can have on us. It makes us bold (v12), we can approach God with confidence, knowing the Spirit of His Son is with us. It brings us freedom (v17), as we live with the truth in our hearts and with eternity as our future. And ultimately it transforms us (v18) – this ‘weight’ of God does not crush us, but shapes us.
Our task? Contemplation. To give our attention to what the Spirit reveals to us, to seek God’s presence – His glory – day by day. As we do that, we slowly become more and more the people we were made to be (v18) – with ‘ever-increasing glory’!
May God grant us grace to contemplate the Lord’s glory today.
Saturday 25th July – 1 Corinthians 15:42-49 ‘Final Reality’
How do you imagine heaven? For many of us, it’s hard to shake that idea of sitting on a cloud, maybe wearing a halo, quite possibly getting a bit bored.
This is not the bible’s view of heaven! The great story of Scripture is that, at the end of time, heaven and earth come together – ‘the new heavens and earth’ (Revelation 21:1) – and the whole creation is renewed. It is not empty sky with a few ghosts wandering around – thankfully! Quite the reverse: a beautiful, busy place, restored to the perfection it was always meant to have.
And in this passage St Paul talks about what that means for us. What will we be like in heaven? The good news is that we aren’t ghosts! We still have bodies – that is the first conclusion of verses 42-44. Professor NT Wright has written extensively on this in scholarly circles, and his compelling conclusion is that this little Greek word ‘soma’ means ‘body’ in the sense that we mean it.
But it’s not quite the body we have now. All its imperfections and weaknesses are healed – which for many of us is very good news indeed. Our heavenly body will be glorious, powerful and immortal (vv42-43).
It will also be spiritual. The true goal of our existence is to enjoy spiritual life with God forever. And we will have a body to match that. The indwelling Spirit of God we enjoy in part now as Christians will so infuse us that we will be fully spiritually alive. The life-giving Spirit of Christ will impart that glorious, eternal life to us: hence this extraordinary (and barely known) promise in v48: ‘as is the heavenly man (i.e. Jesus), so also those who are of heaven (his followers)’.
I doubt many of us think of ourselves as being ‘of heaven’. But, amazingly, that is what we are. And this is what we will become.
As we go through our earthly day today – perhaps feeling decidedly ‘earthly’ – take heart. You are of heaven, and the spiritual life you experience in part will one day be yours in all its fullness. That is where we are all heading… and, with this in mind, let’s pray in faith for that life-giving Spirit of Christ to fill us again today.
Friday 24th July – 1 Corinthians 14:26-33 ‘Everything must be done’
When our kids were little, we didn’t own a car, so all our journeys were by public transport. With a toddler and a baby, our double buggy was effectively our ‘car’ – the kids sat or slept side by side, and the buggy also functioned as our ‘boot’, holding everything on its handles or in the storage space below. Trips to the shops were especially interesting. The trick was to balance the shopping on the handles – too much weight, the buggy tipped backwards; uneven weight on one side, the buggy was hard to push and veered in one direction.
In short, it was all about balance. Get the balance right and even a buggy with 2 children and 40 lbs of food shopping could glide (slowly) along the pavement.
Balance matters in church life too. God gives his people a wide range of spiritual gifts for a reason – he mentions some in v26, or you can check out the list again in chapter 12 if you’ve got time. Sadly churches can often focus on two or three particular (visible) gifts, leading to a lack of balance and the tendency to veer in one direction. St Paul’s advice is very simple: ‘Everything must be done’ (v26). Every gift contributes something special – not only in enabling the whole church to be involved, but in balancing the ministry of the church so that it can move forward in love towards God, and the wonderful richness of the kingdom of God can be displayed.
The reason is equally simple: everything must be done ‘so that the church may be built up’. In God’s community we all get to build, we all get to contribute.
The young church in Corinth certainly had its problems. And Paul wrote much of his advice to correct some of the howlers they’d got mixed up in. Sometimes his correctives are taken as a sign that he was trying to put a lid on things. But that’s not the case; Paul’s passion for the exercise of the gifts of the Spirit is clear, and he concludes his three chapters (12-14) of detailed teaching with this lovely summary: ‘everything must be done’ – i.e. these gifts are all valuable – ‘so that the church may be built up’.
Just as a fire needs a fireplace, so that its heat and light can be channelled to best effect, so the Spirit’s fire needs a fireplace of diversity, shared experience and humble, loving service to manifest the true glory of the kingdom of God.
Today, we’re that fireplace. May God be pleased to blaze his spiritual fire in and through us.
Thursday 23rd July – 1 Corinthians 14:1-5 ‘Seeking the mind of God’
With apologies for late posting today…
What do you think of when you hear the word prophet? Perhaps a wizened old seer living hermit-like in a remote place. Perhaps a gold-toothed charlatan with a white suit and flash car. Perhaps a harmless eccentric stockpiling food and waiting for the end of days.
Or perhaps someone just like us. The remarkable truth in this gem of a passage is that the indwelling Spirit – given to all believers – allows us intimate access to the mind and heart of God. For some, that means the capacity to speak in angelic languages (‘tongues’); for others, to perceive what God is up to, and to share that with the community. This is the gift of prophecy.
The word prophet in the Old Testament literally means ‘mouth’ – a prophet heard from God, and was gifted to speak God’s words to the community. Before Christ, this venerable role was only genuinely given to a few godly individuals – many of whose words were captured in the pages of the Old Testament. However, once the Spirit is poured out, St Paul is now able to write that he would like ‘every one of us’ to prophesy (v5). The capacity to know the wisdom of God is now available to all, through the power of the Spirit. As Paul says earlier in this book: ‘We have the mind of Christ.’ (2:16)
And Paul particularly commends the spiritual gift of prophecy because it enables people to hear God’s word clearly, and to connect it directly to them. It is for our ‘strengthening, encouraging and comfort’ (v3). Even those who do not share our faith may hear something that causes them to ‘fall down and worship God, exclaiming “God is really among you!”’ (v25)
In my experience people overcomplicate prophecy. We tend to assume it is predictive, and difficult to fathom. But prophecy is really the capacity to make God’s word or will relevant to a particular person or people at a particular moment. If you’ve ever read the bible or heard someone speak and thought that it was/they were speaking directly to you, that is prophecy. What you heard or read spoke directly to you in that moment. Put another way, it was what God wanted you to hear that day.
This is why prophecy is so valuable – we don’t just know the mind of God in a general sense, we know what it means for us right now. It’s the difference between saying ‘God loves everyone’ and ‘God loves me’. Or between ‘we should remember to pray for all people’ and ‘we need to pray for this person facing this issue right now!’
Some people have this gift to an unusual degree and might perhaps call themselves prophets. But the amazing thing about spiritual gifts is that they are also situational. We can all sense God saying something – either to us, or for others. In that sense, we can all prophesy.
Why not ask God to reveal something precious to you today? And if what you receive is for you, give thanks! If it’s for someone else – pass it on! It’s all for our strengthening, encouragement and comfort.
Wednesday 22nd July – 1 Corinthians 12:4-14 ‘Each gifted to bless others’
I’ve always loved football. Well into my 30s I would play on Wednesday evenings with a group of blokes who were all old enough to know better. We never agreed teams in advance – we would just separate into two teams on the night, depending on who was there. Some nights I would look at the two teams as they lined up and you could tell it was going to be a close game. Other nights, I would look at our team, and theirs, and think, ‘we’re in for a hammering here.’
And occasionally, something beautiful would happen. Despite my worst fears, our team that looked like it should be well beaten suddenly clicked, and we ended up winning the game. Suddenly every player knew their role, we defended together, attacked together, passed to each other, encouraged each other, and also felt that deep joy that comes from knowing that against the odds our team had prevailed, we’d done something that none of us thought we could do when we lined up 50 minutes earlier.
The alchemy of a team is truly a mysterious thing. But when everyone plays their part, it’s amazing.
The life of the Spirit is meant to have the same quality. In this famous passage St Paul talks about some of the gifts given by the Holy Spirit to help us be the church. Literally, they are ‘grace-gifts’ – gifts which reflect the grace of God to us. And what we learn today are three simple things, all of which we can find in verse 7:
First, they are spiritual gifts. We all have natural gifts and these can of course be used for God too. But these particular gifts help us to do God’s work and see God’s kingdom come, on earth as it is in heaven. For us to fully live the life of the Spirit – the life we’ve been learning about over the last six or more weeks – we need the gifts of the Spirit.
Second, they are for everyone. So often we limit gifts to the upfront people, but in truth there are no first-class and second-class Christians – since we all receive the Spirit of Christ, Jesus gives gifts to each one of us. Which means you have at least one gift like this that God can use for His glory. If you don’t know what gift that is yet, why not ask God to reveal it to you?
Finally, they are for the common good. With the possible exception of the gift of angelic languages (usually called ‘tongues’) every one of these gifts – and the others described in Ephesians 4 and Romans 12 – are used to bless others: to encourage them, heal them, empower them, pray for them, give to them or serve them. We are blessed for blessing. When we say ‘God bless’ to someone, let’s not forget that sometimes we might be the answer to our greeting.
God’s plan is for each one of us to receive gifts that we can offer to others, for their good and our joy. How might you use such a gift today? And, perhaps, how might God bless you through someone else?
Tuesday 21st July – Romans 15:13 ‘Overflowing with hope’
Hope. It’s a tricky word, isn’t it? I must confess I used to be suspicious of it. I found the word too vague, too intangible. I used to see it as little more than wishful thinking, as do many people.
And yet, as I came to see, this is not the view of the New Testament. Hope is a foundational theme, one of the great outcomes of what we believe. You’ll find the word used no less than 53 times, and here is perhaps its greatest moment – hope is connected directly with God himself. St Paul encourages to us to see our Lord as ‘the God of hope’.
Biblical hope is not just wishful thinking: it is the confident expectation that things will be better than they are: that things will be put right, made whole, that our future with God is secure. As St Paul wrote these words the church, though spreading rapidly, remained a tiny minority in a pagan culture, had already faced some persecution, and was just a few years away from a much greater and more violent oppression under the Emperor Nero. To the outside world they were fragile and insignificant, and those who chose to follow Christ were likely to be ostracised from their ‘home’ culture.
How they needed hope! And Paul reminds them that they have just such a hope, indeed they worship (and place their trust in) the ‘God of hope’. And hope is a good parent, because it produces great children: joy and peace. Knowing that, somehow or other, by the grace of God everything will be alright helps us to take the great challenges of life in our stride, and not be overcome by them: we can find unexpected joy, and the peace ‘that transcends understanding’.
And true hope is infectious. I love the phrase ‘overflow with hope’. A life full of hope ‘spills out’ to those around us. It uplifts people, raises spirits, and speaks beautifully (without words) of the truth of what we believe. Paul calls this deep sense of hope a true work of the Spirit – indeed something that needs the Spirit’s power to be a reality in our lives.
In these challenging days, this verse is a great prayer to pray: not just that we would know this true hope for ourselves, but that we would overflow with hope. May our lives spill out into the lives of our families, neighbours and colleagues, as the God of hope fills us today with peace and joy.
Monday 20th July – Romans 8:19-27 ‘Yearning beyond words’
I confess to being someone who builds their life around words. I love to read, to write, to communicate in words. And we live in a content-rich culture. Wherever we go, whatever we see, on billboards in the streets or screens in our homes, there are words, words, words.
But sometimes there are no words. Sometimes the enormity of life or particular circumstances render words irrelevant. When Job lost everything – his family, his livelihood, his health, his place in the community – his friends simply sat with him on the ground for seven days (Job 2:13). In fact, the problems started when they chose to open their mouths and try and ‘explain’ what had happened.
Perhaps we, too, feel that we live in a time when words fail us. The great changes around us, the fears we carry for the future, mean that we are lost for words. Life is not as it should be.
And that causes us to yearn for something better. For we know that something better is coming. We hold onto the promises of God, we trust that one day all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well. But not yet. And that sense of waiting, of longing, represents a deep spiritual desire inside us. As St. Paul puts it in our passage: we ‘groan inwardly as we wait eagerly’ (v23). We long to see the kingdom come, to see ourselves made fully whole, to see the world made right.
Part of what it means to have the Spirit of God dwelling in us is to feel this. This is not a spiritual failing, but the opposite – proof that the Spirit truly is inside us and helping us to see as Jesus sees, to feel as Jesus feels. It is God-given and God-directed. To love is to long. To grow is to groan. The Spirit unites with our spirit to help us give voice to these longings. Not in words, but in a deep yearning for God’s kingdom to come.
And the Spirit is not just here alongside us in this process. The Spirit also articulates these groans in the very throne room of God. Our longing reaches the ears of God through the groans of the Spirit too deep for words (v26). And it doesn’t matter if we don’t have the words, we don’t know exactly what to pray: the Spirit communicates what is needed.
So let us take heart. Life is confusing currently. We may well not know how or what to pray. But God knows, and our yearning will find its way to Him, through the Spirit who dwells in us and intercedes on our behalf. Amen, come Lord Jesus.
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