Marissa Henley

Encouraging weary women to hope in Christ alone

You’ve Been Given a Guarantee {No Matter What Monday}

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God gives us His Spirit to guarantee His gifts. Biblical encouragement, Scripture, and devotionals for women.

We’ve talked for the last few weeks about spiritual blessings from Ephesians 1. We’ve seen that God chose us because of His love, delights in adopting us into His family, and redeems us by His grace. Once we’ve received these gifts of salvation in Christ Jesus, how do we keep them? Can we lose these gifts by doubting or disappointing the One who gave them to us? We find the answer in these verses:

“In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory” (Ephesians 1:13-14).

Those who hear and believe are sealed with the promised Holy Spirit. In John 7:37-39, Jesus promised to send the Spirit to those who believe in Him. So when God gives us the Holy Spirit, it proves two things: God keeps His promises, and we belong to Him.

We are sealed as a guarantee or down payment of our inheritance. We experience our inheritance in part now, but one day, we will experience the fullness of this inheritance in Heaven with Him. As we wait for that day, the Holy Spirit “bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ” (Romans 8:16-17a).

We are sealed until we acquire possession of our inheritance. The verse doesn’t say, “You were sealed until the day your faith wavered or until God got fed up with your repeated failures.” Our sealing—our belonging to Him because of the finished work of Jesus Christ—is guaranteed until we acquire possession of the eternal life given to us.

The Holy Spirit is a beautiful and complex gift from God. He is our Comforter, our Guide, our Sustainer. He is also our Guarantee, reminding us that our hope is certain because the One who saved us is also holding on to us.

No matter what you face this week, God’s given you His Spirit to guarantee His gifts.

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You’ve Been Redeemed {No Matter What Monday}

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You've been redeemed according to the riches of God's grace. Biblical encouragement, Scripture, and devotionals for women.

A few years ago, someone broke into my parents’ house while they were at work. The thief couldn’t carry much on his way out of the small bathroom window, so the most valuable item he stole was their iPad. Weeks later, the iPad turned up at a local pawn shop.

You’d think that if something was stolen from you and later found, it would be returned to you free of charge. But my dad actually had to go to the pawn shop and buy back his own iPad.

It reminds me of what God has done with us. We are His treasured possession, but we allowed ourselves to be led away from Him by our sin. Because we are precious to Him, God sent His Son to buy us back.

Ephesians 1:7: In [Jesus Christ] we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace.

We can’t redeem ourselves. If we go back to my stolen iPad analogy, the iPad didn’t pay the pawn shop for its freedom. The iPad couldn’t pay its own way. Likewise, we are unable to redeem ourselves—we need a Redeemer who can pay the debt we owe.

In Christ, we have redemption. According to the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary, redeem means “to buy back” or “to free from captivity by the payment of a ransom.” On the cross, Jesus paid the ransom to buy us back and free us from slavery to our sin.

Our redemption flows from the riches of God’s grace. Because God is rich in grace and mercy, He can pay the price to redeem us. He can forgive all our sins. He’s not just merciful—He’s rich in mercy. And since we are His children, we benefit from His riches.

No matter what you face this week, you have been redeemed by Jesus Christ because of the riches of God’s grace.

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You’ve Been Adopted. {No Matter What Monday}

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God delights in bringing you into His family. Biblical encouragement, Scripture, and devotionals for women.

As Hurricane Irma barreled through the Caribbean a couple of weeks ago, I received an email from a friend letting us know how the hurricane could affect her four-year-old daughter in Haiti.

You might be wondering, why does my friend have a young daughter in Haiti, riding out a hurricane with other orphans rather than with her family?

My friend and her husband are in the process of adopting their daughter. They’ve been to meet her, she’s called them Mama and Papa, and she belongs to them. But due to paperwork and bureaucracy, they haven’t yet brought her home. She’s no longer an orphan, but she still feels the pain of separation from her Mama and Papa.

This difficult situation serves as a beautiful picture of our life in Christ. We’ve been adopted. God signed our adoption papers with the blood of His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, bringing many sons and daughters into His family. We’re not home yet, but we are a part of God’s household.

[God] predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will. (Ephesians 1:5)

As adopted children, we share in the benefits and inheritance of God’s family. Adoption is a legal proceeding that gives the adopted child the same rights and privileges as a biological child. And as God’s adopted children, we share in a glorious inheritance with Christ.

We who have been adopted call God our Father just as Jesus did. Romans 8:15 says we’ve received the Spirit, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” These are the same words Jesus used in Mark 14:36 when He cried out in prayer to His “Abba! Father!” We can approach our Abba Father with confidence that He hears us and cares for us.

God adopts us according to His good pleasure. The Greek word that is translated “purpose” in this verse could also be translated “good pleasure.” God delights in bringing us into His family and making us His sons and daughters.

No matter what you face this week, God delights in bringing you into His family.

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Video ~ Three Things NOT to Say to Your Friend with Cancer

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Do you hesitate to reach out to a friend with cancer because you’re scared you’ll say the wrong thing? Here are three things not to say, based on my experience as a cancer survivor and friend of cancer-fighters, and served up with a big dose of grace. This was recorded as a Facebook Live video in September 2017.

For more information on this topic, check out my book, Loving Your Friend through Cancer.

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