Groaning to Glory
Study Guide
Is the understanding that our present groaning and future glory are distinct from one another difficult for you? Does this differ from what you have been taught or believed about our life on earth?
How do you view God on a daily basis? Who is he to you? How does this passage compare to the way you view him?
With the Holy Spirit embedded in us as a foretaste of our future glory, what does that change about our present groaning? In what practical ways can we face our groaning with the eager hope of glory?
How are you or are you not living with patience and confidence in your future glory?
Is it generally hard for you to wait eagerly for the future? How might you be too attached to this world? What of the “seen” do you need to loosen your grip on and look to the “unseen” instead?
We can get disillusioned with our faith when we think that our future glory is supposed to be presently available to us.
In Genesis 3, the curse makes it clear that there will be chaos in creation and that what we need to survive will be working against us in our present world.
Both all creation and believers groan on this earth. Even though we have the Spirit embedded in us, we still wait with eager hope to be free from these bodies and this world.
There is a future day when we will be consumed in full with the glimmer of light inside of us.
Both nonbelievers and believers know instinctively that there is a world better than this one. How would we know to long for that world if there is no Heaven or future glory?
As believers, the Spirit has been placed inside of us as a marker of our future.
Some false teaching claims that our future glory in its fullness is available to us now, but it is not. God is a God of miracles and healing, but he is not on demand to give us whatever we want right now.
When you hear theological framework that aligns exactly with what you want, you have to be cautious and wary.
Although we do not have our future glory in fullness on this earth, believers are not to be shriveled up, weak, frail, and complaining all the time—we have a glorious, certain hope that we can wait for with patience and confidence.
We can endure any moment because we can put our faith and trust in the future moment when we will be consumed with glory in the physical presence of God.
The groaning of this life will drive out our attachments to this world and cause us to crave another world—the one we were created for.
When we are stricken with grief, suffering, and weakness the Holy Spirit intercedes for us in alignment with God’s will.
We have to endure. Continue to release your grip on this world, setting your heart and mind more on the invisible than the visible.
If you are not a Christian, there is a future hope that goes beyond your present world and transcends this moment. God offers you redemption from your greatest problem—not your sickness, your family, your loneliness, or anything of this world—but from the issue of your soul.
Scripture: Romans 8:18-27
Topics: Healing, Holy Spirit, Redemption, Salvation, The Fall