Episode #114 Getting Your Hopes Up – Reconstructing Faith

Hey friends, it's Jen, and I come with exciting news for us today. No matter where we are in our walks with God, there is more that God has available for us.

We're concluding our series on reconstructing faith, and I have this anticipation in my spirit. I hope you can hear it in my voice. There is so much that is still available to us in God. I've been a believer for over 30 years, I actually came to Christ around Christmastime many years ago as a child. And I went through seasons of not knowing if I believed God, of being a Christian but not knowing about relationship with God, of going through really hard things and questioning where God was in the middle of it.

And I can tell you that every step along the way God has been better and more than I thought he was.

We're going to explore some of that in the next series here on the podcast and spark curiosity and wonder at the revelation of Christ. But for today, I'm going to be reading some verses for us, in the first couple chapters of the book of Ephesians.

And the purpose of this is really to get our hopes up.

I'm super passionate about equipping believers to explore Christian terms and words and vocabulary in ways that are greater than the low levels of what those words have come to mean for us. There are phrases that we use that are supernaturally charged, but we can get so accustomed to them—words like grace or mercy or eternal life—that they lose their meaning.

We can talk about relationship with God, and if your church experiences are anything like mine, that word did not have significance to it for a long time. It felt mundane and familiar. It didn't feel life giving.

But relationship with God is us as finite, fallible, created beings, having moment by moment, interactions with our eternal, almighty creator, God, who loves us.

So today we’re exploring some of the far more that is available for us that we would get our hopes up about it.
What we know as the book of Ephesians began as the letter of Ephesians. So this is written by the Apostle Paul to the church in Ephesus.

This is one of the letters that Paul writes from prison. Keep that image in your mind as I'm reading these verses to you. Because Paul is exhorting all believers to get our hopes up about God. So, starting in Ephesians 1:3.

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.” (Ephesians 1:3)

Skipping down…

“—having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 1:18-21)

I'll close this here in Ephesians 3:14-21.

“For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.” (Ephesians 3:14-21)

Paul writes from prison of the surpassing greatness of God.
That we would know the riches of his glorious inheritance. That God would open our eyes to know the hope to which he has called us.

Sometimes I can disqualify this greater reality when I'm walking through hard circumstances. We can interpret God's goodness through tangible terms, and yes, he does meet tangible needs. But far more than that, the abundance and the richness of God is in spiritual provision. In the hope that we receive, the love that we get to live from, the eternal life that we have in Him.

Paul was able to write with full confidence and full assurance of the hope that we have in God. Even if you are closer to God right now than you ever have been, there is far more that is available to us.

And we can get our hopes up about it. We can ask him to keep fortifying our faith, to reconstruct us in love, to help us put down stronger roots, to be filled with more of the fullness of God.

So today our question for God is simple:

God, what is something far more abundant that you offer me?

As He talks with you about things, ask Him for it. Ask Him to give that to you, or to grow you in that way, or to show you if there's areas you're resisting receiving that from Him. God has far more that He wants to give you, and I'm excited for you to walk in it.

Have a good talk.

And if you've been encouraged by this content, please share it with a friend and help them grow in their conversational relationship with God too!

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