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.

 

Deeper Intimacy

In the challenge from my pastor to deepen my intimacy with God, I’ve been pondering what intimacy means and almost decided it is easier to know when it is there or not there than to describe what it is.

One person says it is like long and continuing eye-contact, which creates a bonding —again without a good description. Others say intimacy is like friendship — you can be yourself and the other person loves you anyway, or you can be together without any hindrance to knowing and understanding each other.

How then is intimacy with God? Eye-contact seems impossible, yet God says, “Seek my face” to the psalmist (see Psalm 27:8). I find it interesting that Hosea connects this seeking with acknowledging guilt (see Hosea 5:15).

Certainly, with God I can be myself and know I am still loved. His love is based not on who I am or what I do, but on who He is. However, knowing that He loves me comes from having a relationship with Him . . .

“Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.” (1 John 4:8)

I had no idea that God loved me until the Gospel informed me of the extent He went to demonstrate it. Jesus came. Jesus displayed God’s glory. Jesus died for my sin. Those are His love actions and when Jesus came into my heart, they declared the reality of intimacy with God.

Yet to me, the greatest intimacy-builder is tied up in the statement of being together ‘without any hindrance.’ How can that happen? God is so far above me, so holy, so indescribable. That distance of ‘being’ and my smallness compared to His greatness is hindrance in itself. How can anyone be in the presence of such a God without hindrance — never mind have intimacy with Him?

The Bible says sin separated me from Christ, so I was alienated from His realm, without hope and without God in the world. (Ephesians 2:12) The hindrances are always about sin.

I think of the things that separate me from intimacy with others. Every issue that springs to mind also involves sin, either mine, or theirs, and usually both. Our fears of being ‘discovered’ or known fully do it. We fear rejection, create walls to protect ourselves and in the process intimacy is pushed aside.

I cannot do that with God. He already knows everything about me, even to the hairs on my head and to the words I speak before I open my mouth. What do I do with that? It forces me to examine my own lack of knowledge of God. Being totally known like that is like being stripped naked. I cannot hide. I must face the fact that my sin prevents me from intimacy with this all-knowing God.

This is not to despair. The Gospel is God’s answer. My sin is forgiven. Not just the past sin, but today’s sin and tomorrow’s sin. it isn’t about my efforts or contrition, but about the One who bore my sin and shame so God would be justified in forgiving me. Even so, my part is confessing sin, saying the same thing that God says about it. David, Old Testament king of Israel knew that. He said:

“Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit. For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. Selah I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not cover my iniquity; I said, ‘I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,’ and you forgave the iniquity of my sin. Selah” (Psalm 32:1–5)

And I know the importance of confession too. Plunked between two verses about intimacy destroying attitudes is my favorite Bible verse, the one I long ago decided was key to spiritual growth:

“If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.” (1 John 1:8–10)

Confessing sin is key to intimacy. The more I open up, the more time I spend, no matter what else I do, no actions will erase the distance between my heart and the heart of God created by sin that I will not acknowledge or ‘fess up to. It must be acknowledged before I can look Him in the eye. It must come out in the open before I will hear Him say, ‘Child, in Christ you have redemption secured by His blood, forgiveness of your trespasses — all according to the riches of His grace (Ephesians 1:7), and because of Jesus, You can snuggle up close to me and be loved and accepted.’

Timothy Keller, in his book “Prayer: Experiencing Awe and Intimacy with God” says, “To lose our grip on the costliness of forgiveness will result in a superficial, perfunctory confession that does not lead to any real change of heart.” And it is in the changing of my heart that I draw into a deeper relationship with the One who does the changing.

^^^^^^^

Jesus, words often fail me. How can I respond to all of this? I hear You invite me to come and talk to You, draw near, be open, allowing You to show me who I am so I can better see who You are — deepening the bond, deepening the intimacy. Oh, such a wonder!

Rising to the Challenge?

When macramé was popular, I decided to try it and picked the most difficult pattern available. When I started making quilts, my first project was a queen-size using a pattern I had to resize and add borders to make it large enough. I’m one of those people that if someone suggests a task might be too difficult, I jump at the opportunity to try it. 
 

Challenges to accomplish something are one thing, but this “I can do it” attitude could get me into trouble when applied to forbidden things, like the “shall not’s” that God commands. Even speed limits and other legal or moral restrictions tend to bring out a “who says?” and “I can do whatever I want” response in most of us.

The apostle Paul wrote of his struggle with sin and with the desire of his old nature to rule his life. He recognized that attitude when he said: “For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me.” (Romans 7:11) 

From this verse and the context around it, I can see that Paul was aware of the danger of sin. It is not a mere annoyance to brush off or take lightly. Sin is deceptive and deadly, deceptive in that most of us regard it too lightly, thinking it “really isn’t so bad” or that “everyone does it.” 

As for being deadly, sin like breaking the law or running over the speed limit obviously can lead to physical peril, but there is another kind of death that is far worse. Instead of life being separated from the body, this more serious death is being separated from God. 

It happened first in Eden. Adam and Eve ate forbidden fruit and hid from God. After He confronted them, He put them out of the garden. The New Testament explains that, “just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned” (Romans 5:12). Every one of us has been ‘put out of the garden’ away from God and the perfection He created for us, because all are sinners.

Paul clarified this to the Gentile church at Ephesus. He reminded them that before they believed in Jesus, they were “separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.” (Ephesians 2:12) 

In Romans, he also wrote, “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23).

When he wrote of his own struggles with sin, Paul said that sin “seized an opportunity through the commandment.” Another verse says, “The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law” (1 Corinthians 15:56). This makes me wonder about the connection between my struggle with sin and how that connects to the law and to death. 

Part of the answer is that tendency of sinful human nature to rise to the challenge when given a “you cannot do it” command. That tendency to resist the law gets us into trouble all the time. When God says no, the sinful human heart responds otherwise, seemingly oblivious to the danger.

Instead of trying to control these crazy impulses, the solution is found through faith in Jesus Christ. Trusting Him brings eternal life, forgiveness of sin, and the power of the Holy Spirit to live in a new way. Instead of trying to live by rules and “thou shalt not” commands, Christians are set into a different realm where we die to the law and can put to death that old nature.

For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. (Romans 8:2)

The law of the Spirit of life gives me a new response to the choices that are before me. Instead of being challenged to “do it anyway” the Holy Spirit changes my desires and removes my interest in being stubbornly independent. Like Paul, I have lapses, but God is persistent and thorough. He patiently and continually opens my eyes to the deception of sin and helps me stay alert to its deadly consequences. 

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Lord God, thankfully You care about the dangers of sin and the awfulness of what it can do to those You lovingly created. You sent Your only Son to die for my sin and offer me new life to replace that sin nature that was (and still is) determined to kill me. Keep my eyes open and my heart turned toward You.