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Hope that Overflows {No Matter What Monday}

April 23, 2018 by Marissa Leave a Comment

I’m a mostly boring person, and I don’t push the envelope very often. But occasionally, I let my gas gauge get down to E and create some excitement.

Once I let my engine run on a cold day while I waited for my kids to finish piano lessons. (See how exciting our life is?) I finally realized the little display on my dashboard was trying to tell me I only had five miles to go until empty. I immediately turned off the car and pulled out my phone to search for the nearest gas station. Two miles away. No problem.

But when the kids piled in and I started driving, the miles on the fuel range display ticked down more quickly than I expected. My kids and I prayed anxiously until we slid into the gas station with a zero on the display.

Do you feel like you’re running on empty today? I’ve got good news for you! The God of hope will fill you with joy, peace, and hope that overflows.

“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” (Romans 15:13, NIV)

This overflowing hope is more than you could ever need. It never runs out. You’re not just driving around with your gas gauge on full, there is gas gushing out of your car!

This hope is overflowing because its source is our infinite God of hope. He is the source of our hope, and our hope is in Him. This overflowing hope comes by the power of the Holy Spirit who dwells in us.

When we face circumstances that look hopeless, we can continue to be hopeful. The God of hope promises to fill His children with more than enough hope for all our struggles and suffering.

No matter what you face this week, God will fill you with overflowing hope.

When You Struggle to Give Thanks {No Matter What Monday}

November 20, 2017 by Marissa Leave a Comment

I laid next to my sleeping husband and wondered if the next morning, Thanksgiving Day, he’d wake to find that I’d died during the night. My fear may have been exaggerated, but it wasn’t completely unreasonable. I ran a fever of over 102, and the number of white blood cells available to fight infection in my body was dangerously close to the number of hairs on my head: zero.

From the world’s perspective, I didn’t have much to be thankful for. I was stricken with a rare cancer, facing months of grueling treatment, bald, sick, fatigued, and scared.

And yet, these verses challenged my thinking:

“Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you” (I Thessalonians 5:16-18).

Some days, I didn’t feel like rejoicing. Chemo made my mind too foggy to pray. I struggled to find reasons to give thanks.

With great relief, I noticed the scripture doesn’t say, “Give thanks for all circumstances.” God didn’t ask me to give thanks for cancer—in fact, I believe He hates cancer, along with all the effects of this fallen world. He asked me to give thanks in all circumstances, and then He graciously enabled me to do so.

Maybe this year, giving thanks is a challenge for you. I’ve been there, and I’m sorry for your pain. When our life is a mess, our future uncertain, or our hearts broken, how can we give thanks in those circumstances?

God doesn’t ask us to wear a fake smile and humor Him with a Pinterest-inspired thankfulness craft. He hears our cries for rescue, restoration, and relief from our suffering. Then the Lord gently lifts our tear-stained faces and shows us He is with us. He cares for us, He is at work, and He can be trusted in our trials. Our Heavenly Father lovingly reminds us that He is the reason we give thanks in all circumstances.

No matter what you face this week, the Lord gives you a reason to give thanks in all circumstances.

Photo by Dan Musat on Unsplash

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

October 9, 2017 by Marissa Leave a Comment

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.

You Never Suffer Alone {No Matter What Monday}

May 29, 2017 by Marissa Leave a Comment

Have you ever felt alone in your suffering? When we’re going through something hard, it can feel like no one gets it, so we feel isolated. But God’s Word gives us hope that we are never alone in our struggles.

In Daniel 3, God’s people are living as exiles in Babylon. Three of the Israelites, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, face a difficult choice between worshipping a golden image or being thrown into a furnace.

In the minds of these three men, the decision is a no-brainer. In fact, the confident manner in which they defy the king’s order to bow down to the idol sends him into a rage.

After the men are thrown to the flames, the king’s fury changes to confusion. “Wait a minute,” he says, “how many men did we throw into that furnace?”

A fourth man, whose appearance was “like the son of the gods,” walked with the three men in the furnace (Daniel 3:25).

We all know how this story ends: Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego are pulled from the furnace without even a scent of smoke on their clothes. But we know from experience that this type of deliverance isn’t always God’s plan for His people. Sometimes the flames feel like they’re killing us. We may not be pulled from the furnace until we reach heaven. So what can we take away from this story?

Dale Ralph Davis puts it this way in his commentary on Daniel: “Christ did not keep them out of the furnace but found them in it. He does not always shield you from all distresses and dangers, but it is in the loneliness, the betrayal, in the loss that the Fourth Man comes and walks with you.”

If you belong to Christ, you never walk through suffering alone. He has found you, and He will never leave you.

No matter what you face this week, your Savior walks with you in your struggles.

(An earlier version of this devotional originally appeared on my website on February 22, 2016.)

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