What does the Bible say about our expectation from God?
Psalm 62:5 emphasizes that our souls should wait only upon God, as our true expectation comes from Him.
In recognizing our neediness, we realize that the righteousness, grace, faith, hope, and love we seek are all found in Christ alone. Such understanding transforms our expectations from worldly or self-derived sources to the divine assurance that God fulfills our deepest needs. This act of waiting upon God keeps our souls anchored in His promises and promotes spiritual growth as we learn to trust in His provision, aligning our hearts with His will and purpose.
Psalm 62:5, Ephesians 2:22, 1 Corinthians 6:19
How do we know that blessings are stored up in Christ?
The Bible reveals that spiritual blessings, including righteousness and grace, are found solely in Christ.
In Ephesians 1:3, we are told that God has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ, reinforcing that through His sacrifice and righteousness, we receive these abundant gifts. This leads to a transformative understanding that any hope or joy we seek must be firmly anchored in our relationship with Him, fostering a deep sense of reliance on His redemptive work rather than on our own inadequacies.
Ephesians 1:3, 1 Corinthians 1:30
Why is understanding our spiritual poverty important for Christians?
Recognizing our spiritual poverty helps Christians rely on God's grace rather than their own strength.
In acknowledging our helplessness, we better appreciate the blessings of faith, hope, and love that God generously offers. It enables us to view ourselves accurately—not as self-sufficient beings, but as desperate beggars before a gracious King. Embracing our spiritual poverty catalyzes a deep yearning for Christ and compels us to wait upon Him for aid, fostering a communal pursuit of holiness and sanctification as we seek to live in alignment with His will.
2 Corinthians 12:9-10, Matthew 5:3
"My soul, wait only upon God; for my expectation is from him."
— Psalm 62:5
I believe that the Lord, before ever he communicates a real blessing to the souls of his poor and needy children, not merely convinces them by the Spirit of the depth of their poverty, of their truly ruined and lost state by nature, of the destitution of everything good in them; but he opens their eyes in a mysterious manner to see certain blessings which are stored up in Christ. For instance, righteousness to cover their nakedness, blood to atone for their transgressions, grace to superabound over all the aboundings of sin, faith to be the evidence of things not seen, hope to anchor within the veil, and love to be a foretaste of eternal bliss.
These and similar blessings the Lord presents before their eyes, and gives them a spiritual understanding that these mercies are stored up in Christ; and as he gives them this perception of what the blessing is, and shows them that these blessings are not in the creature, but in Christ, he draws forth the desires and sighs and ardent affections of their souls after these blessings, so that nothing but these special mercies can really satisfy them, ease their minds, assuage their troubles, bind up their wounds, and pour oil and wine into their conscience.
And thus he brings them to be suppliants, he lays them at his feet as beggars. Yet, base though they feel themselves to be, black though they know they are, there is that mysterious attraction of the Spirit, as well as that mysterious fitting together of their poverty and Christ's righteousness, their nakedness and Christ's justifying robe, their helplessness and his almighty strength; that they never can be satisfied, unless an experienced and enjoyed union of the two takes place in their conscience.
"In whom you also are built together for a habitation of God through the Spirit." –Ephesians 2:22
These words will apply both to the whole body of Christ viewed collectively, and to each separate member of that body viewed individually; and what the Church of God is in its completeness in Christ, as it will be in heaven above, and what it is in its visible and militant state on earth now, so is every individual member of that Church in this present earthly state; and it is this solemn truth which makes the words before us to have such a forcible application to every individual believer. As we shall all have to answer for ourselves, "to die," as one said, "alone," and as religion is a personal matter, how careful should it make each individual believer so to walk before God and man that he may have both an inward and outward evidence that his body is the temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 6:19), and that he is a habitation of God by the Spirit.
If he realizes this, and lives under its solemn weight and influence, how careful he will be not to defile that body which is the temple of the Holy Spirit; how desirous and anxious not to defile his eyes by wandering lusts, nor his ears by listening to worldly and carnal conversation, nor his lips by speaking deceit, or indulging in light and frothy talk, nor his hands by putting them to anything that is evil, nor his feet by running on errands of vanity and folly; but to view his body as a member of Christ (1 Cor. 6:15), and therefore sanctified to his service and to his glory.
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