A Good Practice
December 26, 2024
Hearts on tip-toe
July 13, 2018
And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body. - ROMANS 8:23
What causes you to stand on tip-toe? I was late to a standing-room-only basketball game. A player on my favorite team was making a crucial shot. At the back of the crowd, I craned to watch, standing tip-toe, holding my breath.
“To groan,” according to New Testament Greek, is the equivalent of breathless expectancy. And it’s more than dull waiting to the accompaniment of droning music in the dentist’s office. Rather, as J.B. Phillips translated it, the “waiting” Paul writes of is the eager expectation that raises you on tip-toe to eyeball what you yearn to see.
Creation is on tip-toe waiting for the manifestation of God’s children, because when our salvation is consummated at the coming of Christ, the grip of the fall is broken off nature. And even while nature is on tip-toe watching for its redemption, our spiritual hearts “catch” their “breath,” and look with expectancy for the coming of the Lord. People with tip-toe hearts have a future they’re excited about!
TODAY’S FOCUS
Ask the Lord to break through the dullness of your daily routine with the awareness that every tick of the clock brings history closer to the end of the age and the coming of Christ.
