Christ makes the difference…

Today’s reading says we need to know who we really are in order to know how we ought to live. In Christ, we are God’s children, His heirs, and His friends. But there are more ID markers.

He also calls us His sheep. I’ve had sheep. They are easily frightened, follow each other and need a shepherd to keep them in green pastures! Yes, I often behave as a sheep, but am glad that He enables me to hear His voice and follow Him, my Good Shepherd.

Jesus also says of me that I will be hated by all for His name’s sake and must endure to the end.(Matthew 10:22) This means behaving with endurance, not giving up when life includes persecution.
Lest I complain or fear that possibility, Jesus suggests in a parable that He is to be “allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me.” (Matthew 20:15) I am His child and His friend, but I am also His possession. I belong to Him. Not only that, when I feel weak, useless, unable to do as He desires, He says:

“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. (2 Corinthians 12:9)

Being His child, heir, and friend sounds like good news, yet Jesus is not ‘my buddy’ for He is my Lord and Teacher, and also His disciple who must live obediently to what He teaches me:

So Jesus said to those who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, (John 8:31)

What does that look like? Abiding in Him shows up in the way I live and treat others...

By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:35)
As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love…. You are my friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. (John 15:9-10; 14-15)

These things are possible because Jesus lives in me. “In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.” (John 14:20) He changes my life because of the Holy Spirit who enables me to witness to the love and power of God…

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” (Acts 1:8)

And He enables the way I ought to live. While knowing who I really am is helpful, it is His life in me that enables the actions that I ought to have…

I myself am satisfied about you, my brothers, that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge and able to instruct one another. (Romans 15:14)

None of the “ought to” behaviors are up to me alone, but are the wonder of Christ using me to do His will, like a hand in a glove.

PRAY: Jesus, while the Bible does not use this metaphor, You are the hand in this glove and living as You desire me to live is all about You and Your amazing grace and power. I am so thankful that striving for excellence comes to even lazy and helpless people like me. You make the difference.

Hope is a Person . . .

 

 

I’ve been reading a fiction series in which the main character is often in danger and hopes her influential father will come to her rescue. As soon as she sees him, her trust is rewarded because his mere presence assures her that she is safe.

This isn’t quite how the Bible defines HOPE but close. It is like the smell of fresh-baked bread as you walk into the house — you cannot see or eat it, but you know it is there waiting to be tasted.

This is like biblical hope. I know the reality of Jesus Christ and although I cannot see Him, I know that He exists and is a real part of my life, both now and in the future. It is in Him I put my hope. In the NT, hope sometimes means wishing or desiring but mostly it is about this firm conviction and faith in Jesus Christ meaning hope is much like faith. He is not visible yet I know He is with me and one day I will see Him.

Hebrews 11:1. “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”

1 Peter 1:13. “Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”

Hope is not so much a wish as a person because it is based on who God is and what He is doing, His power and promises. It is “through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.”

He is the “God of hope” who fills me with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit I can abound in hope. That is, this biblical hope is a joyful expectation rather than an anxious emotion based on an “I want” — for which I have no assurance.

Romans 5:5 says, “And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” By His power and grace, believers simply know for certain that our future is secure, not because of how we feel about it but because of our God who says so!

This hope includes several things besides the promise of seeing Jesus and having eternal life. Romans 8:20–21 says, “In hope, the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God” and Galatians 5:5 tells me that “through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness.” Yet the greatest is the One who is my hope:

Colossians 1:27. “ . . . Christ in you, the hope of glory.”

Titus 2:13. I am “waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ.”

GAZE INTO HIS GLORY. My hope is strengthened by Scripture that tells me what God has done and is doing, and by the gracious assurance of the Holy Spirit. Like a helmet, this hope protects my mind and gives joy to my heart. It also causes others to wonder about my reasons for this hope and gives me opportunity to share it with those who have no hope and are yet without God. I want them to also know the One who grants this amazing gift.

Romans 15:4. “Whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.”

With gratitude for hope, I am compelled “In my heart, to honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks for a reason for the hope that is in me; yet do it with gentleness and respect” — “remembering that I was once separated from Christ, alienated . . . . and a stranger to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.” (Ephesians 2:12 and 1 Peter 3:15)

Praise You Jesus, You are my living hope.

 

Jesus is my Hope

Some words in the English language are both nouns and verbs. Love is one of them. We can say, “I love you” and “You are my love” as an example. Another example is HOPE.

Normally we think of hope as a verb because it seems like something we do, but the Bible often uses hope as something we have, like confidence or assurance. It can mean a desire or a wish, such as “I hope yesterday’s snowfall will be melted by suppertime.” However both testaments tell us to hope in God with a difference in the source or desire; instead of it being something I want or wish for, biblical HOPE is a gift, a noun that comes from God.

Romans 15:13. May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.

Another example is in Romans 5:2 which says, “Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.” This is not a mere wish — wishes easily produce anxiety because we are not too sure they will happen, but biblical hope is a confident expectation that produces joy because we are certain of the object of our hope. Romans 5:5 says this hope is a result of God’s love being poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit; again, it comes from Him, not my own wishes.  

While hope is about the future, about events like the return of Jesus Christ, the resurrection of the dead, a restored creation and being in heaven with all God’s people, my hope is centered on Jesus Christ. He is my hope, both now as concerning all the issues of this life, and the future where I will be with Him for all eternity:

Colossians 1:27. To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

1 Timothy 1:1. Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by command of God our Savior and of Christ Jesus our hope . . .  

In trying to think of a parallel, falling in love and marriage could illustrate. A bride hopes for a lovely wedding, a family, a good life, but her hope is centered on the groom, the one she joins with who will be with her in making that hope a reality. He is her hope for the future. The difference is that as the bride of Christ, the church (including me) has a certain hope in our Savior. All His promises assure the hope we have. He is our hope in the sense that He will give us a forever union with Him and eternal life, even a ‘marriage supper’ as declared in Revelation 19:9:

And the angel said to me, “Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.” And he said to me, “These are the true words of God.”

GAZE INTO HIS GLORY. I’ve the sense of a bride walking down the aisle toward Jesus, my hope for all eternity. From the little I know at this time about Him, I have great anticipation that eternity will be filled with great and amazing discoveries about who He is and what He has done. The joy in my heart tells me that it will be far better that anything I can now imagine.