18Now you can see why I consider my current predicament as a minor inconvenience compared with the wonderful glory that will be revealed in us.19Why, even creation itself is in suspense, longing for God's sons to reveal who they are.20-21You see, it was His will that His purposes for His creation would be frustrated until this happens. People did not choose this frustration for themselves; it was imposed on them by God, because creation can only be liberated from bondage, from that death principle we see at work all around us, by being brought into the liberty that God's children enjoy because they know and reflect His glory.22Everywhere around us it seems that creation is groaning just like a woman about to give birth.23There is even a sense in which we believers are also groaning inwardly. Although we know the Spirit is already at work within us, we long for the time when we will go to be with the Lord as His sons, when we experience the resurrection of our bodies.24This is the hope we have because of the salvation we have received. You cannot see now that for which you hope, because hope refers to what lies in the future. If we could experience what we hope for, that would not be true hope. How can anyone say he already has what he hopes for?25No, we have to wait patiently for what God has promised us in the future.Depend on the Spirit26Similarly, we depend on the help the Holy Spirit gives us because of our weakness. We are so weak in ourselves that we do not even know how to pray. Yet the Holy Spirit Himself prays in us and for us, sometimes with such intensity that we find ourselves groaning; no words can express the depth of what He is working in us.27God searches our hearts and He certainly knows what He causes His Spirit to pray for us as His saints, the people He has set apart for Himself. His Spirit will always pray in and through us according to God's will.28We can be sure, then, that in everything God is working for the welfare of those who love Him, those He has called according to His purpose.29He knew who would be His, because He decided before He created us that He would have a people who would be like His Son, those who would live as His brothers and sisters.30This is why He called you as part of His eternal purpose. This is why, having called you, He made you totally acceptable to Him. This is why you are destined for the glory that is already yours in Christ!
Scripture quoted by permission. The passage above is taken from THE TRUTH VERSION. Copyright © 2009 by Colin Urquhart. All rights reserved worldwide. (The Truth New Testament)