March 30 Daily Devotional

Bible Reading

Devotional

Suffering is universal. No home is passed over, and no life will be without sorrow. The apostle says that not just people but the whole creation is groaning. That includes the animals—and maybe even the plants.

God's people live and work in this present world, even though, in the language of the Bible, they really belong to the future world, the new world God is creating. We live in the present world, but we do not belong to it.

Already we have received "the firstfruits of the Spirit." This is only the first fruit. The whole harvest is not yet in. We have been given the down payment but not yet the whole of the inheritance.

A new principle, one that cannot be found anywhere else in the old world, is already present in God's people. It is the gift of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is the foretaste of the new country, the first power from the other side, from God, and the Spirit is already here.

Now the suffering of Christians has become more acute than the suf­fering of other creatures. As long as a person's experience is limited to the present world and the present misery, she tends to accept what she finds here. She gets accustomed to it. She even gets used to sin.

But the church has the Spirit, the beginning of the new life and the new world. Therefore we cannot possibly be satisfied with the old world and the old life. Everything and everyone is groaning, but we groan louder. Everyone is looking for something better, but Christians know where to look for it.

Only the church can interpret the dream that suffering humanity is dreaming. Christians know that the groaning of the present world is the birth pain of the coming age. The message of the church is a tiding of hope: the pain may be severe, but it is the kind of pain that precedes the coming of new life. When these pains begin, the new day is very close.

REFLECTIONS

How do verses 18-25 give you hope when you are suffering?

Andrew Kuyvenhoven's Daylight, a modern devotional classic, was originally published by Paideia Press in 1977. This updated edition is copyright 2009 by Faith Alive Christian Resources. You can order a copy of this revised version of the book directly from the publisher.

A man of many accomplishments, Andrew Kuyvenhoven is probably best known for his contributions to Today (formerly The Family Altar), a widely-used monthly devotional booklet associated with the Back to God Hour. Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations for this updated edition of Daylight are from the Holy Bible: Today's New International Version copyright 2001, 2005 by the International Bible Society.