I
think the hope that so many of us live in is a decidedly fleshly one. Yes, it
involves the Lord, but more in an assistant's role. We bring our hopes to Him,
and He then turns them into reality. We live hoping for many things, believing
for many things, oftentimes very good things. We spend a lot of time thinking
about how we can enter into the reality of those hopes. A better job. A better
marriage and family. A better and more fruitful ministry. A better, more
contented, and happier life. We hope for all that and more. We're just waiting
for Him to show us the way to having it. That's our hope. That He'll provide
the key, the steps, the way, for us to enter into the fullness of our hopes. To
hope for any of the above is not evil, but to define this as the "living hope"
Paul spoke of leaves us, I think, a very poor imitation of the real
thing.
To have the living hope Paul spoke of is, as a friend put it, to have a hope for something that cannot possibly be realized any other way but by the intervention and ministry of Christ. To have such hope is to be able to look in every direction and see nothing but impossibility, yet be able to look into the face of the One who placed us there, and know that with Him, all things are possible, and because of that, despite all the power of hell and darkness, we press onward and upward with a living hope.
Many of us might say that we have no problem admitting that those things we hope for are impossible to achieve without Him. Yet, if we're honest, we may also admit that so many of the things we hope for have as their main beneficiary either ourselves or our loved ones. Self is heavily invested in it all, and so, the self is seeking to keep its hand on the direction and means of the process. We do hope in HIm, but we also maintain a steadfast hope in ourselves as well. I don't think that this is the living hope that Paul spoke of. I also think that we're living in days where the Father is allowing such hope to crumble into the ruins of our disappointment, disillusionment, and even despair, and all because He so longs for us to be born into that living hope. A hope that is very much a part of our inheritance in Christ. It is, I believe, a hopeless hope.
Hopeless hope is, at least to me, a hope that brings the sum of all our hopes to Him, and places them in not only His hands, but His heart, and trusts Him with them. All of them. Hopeless hope is to have very legitimate desires, dreams, and hopes, and yet, is willing to release them all, with no guarantee of their realization, hoping not in the coming to pass of these desires, but in the God who holds all of them in His heart. We're hoping not in outcomes, but in Him who is the outcome of everything. To have such hope, living hope, is to live in deep abiding peace, because we are abiding in the one who is Hope incarnate. Every hope we have may have been shattered, yet we aren't defeated because our ultimate hope is not in what we've longed for, but in Him. This is a faith, a hope, and a life that cannot be shaken. I have so much more to learn about it. Maybe you do as well.
Hebrews 11:1 says "Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for; the conviction of things not seen." If the things hoped for are limited to what we can touch and see, we're sure to spend more time in frustration and human hopelessness. He has never promised to give us everything we have hoped for, though in His mercy and love, He gives so much. He has promised to sustain us in His living hope in the midst of the deepest darkness and unknown, depending not on what we are seeing with our eyes of flesh, but upon that which we see with the eyes of our heart, gives us our peace; our hope in Him. Hopeless hope that yields a living hope.
To have the living hope Paul spoke of is, as a friend put it, to have a hope for something that cannot possibly be realized any other way but by the intervention and ministry of Christ. To have such hope is to be able to look in every direction and see nothing but impossibility, yet be able to look into the face of the One who placed us there, and know that with Him, all things are possible, and because of that, despite all the power of hell and darkness, we press onward and upward with a living hope.
Many of us might say that we have no problem admitting that those things we hope for are impossible to achieve without Him. Yet, if we're honest, we may also admit that so many of the things we hope for have as their main beneficiary either ourselves or our loved ones. Self is heavily invested in it all, and so, the self is seeking to keep its hand on the direction and means of the process. We do hope in HIm, but we also maintain a steadfast hope in ourselves as well. I don't think that this is the living hope that Paul spoke of. I also think that we're living in days where the Father is allowing such hope to crumble into the ruins of our disappointment, disillusionment, and even despair, and all because He so longs for us to be born into that living hope. A hope that is very much a part of our inheritance in Christ. It is, I believe, a hopeless hope.
Hopeless hope is, at least to me, a hope that brings the sum of all our hopes to Him, and places them in not only His hands, but His heart, and trusts Him with them. All of them. Hopeless hope is to have very legitimate desires, dreams, and hopes, and yet, is willing to release them all, with no guarantee of their realization, hoping not in the coming to pass of these desires, but in the God who holds all of them in His heart. We're hoping not in outcomes, but in Him who is the outcome of everything. To have such hope, living hope, is to live in deep abiding peace, because we are abiding in the one who is Hope incarnate. Every hope we have may have been shattered, yet we aren't defeated because our ultimate hope is not in what we've longed for, but in Him. This is a faith, a hope, and a life that cannot be shaken. I have so much more to learn about it. Maybe you do as well.
Hebrews 11:1 says "Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for; the conviction of things not seen." If the things hoped for are limited to what we can touch and see, we're sure to spend more time in frustration and human hopelessness. He has never promised to give us everything we have hoped for, though in His mercy and love, He gives so much. He has promised to sustain us in His living hope in the midst of the deepest darkness and unknown, depending not on what we are seeing with our eyes of flesh, but upon that which we see with the eyes of our heart, gives us our peace; our hope in Him. Hopeless hope that yields a living hope.
Blessings,
Pastor O
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