Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Our Hope and Promise:
Future Living or
Future Assurance and Present Living?
What does it mean to hope? Are you a hope person? Do you see your hopes as just wishful dreaming, or are they things which you are relatively sure will be? Are real hopes to you those seeming impossibilities that somehow you are sure will happen? Indeed what does it mean to hope?
The Old Testament prophets at times preached that despite the terrible conditions in which the Israelites lived and in spite of the justifiable punishment they saw God inflict, the people could rightly hope that God would save, God would restore his people, God would come.
The writers of the New Testament, likewise in the face of dire conditions and obvious reasons for doubt, believed that Jesus would return in glory. The day of the Lord, the day of righteousness and justice is coming. The Son of Man will return and usher in the Kingdom of God. Their lives were lives based on hope! They held the hope with assurance without assurances. The future for them had already begun. Jesus resurrected was the first fruit, the first of many to come.
Do we live in that hope? Is it real?
Imagine for a moment that indeed the future is assured; that that for we hope will be. This so, we no longer need worry about what is to come, we need no longer plan diligently for the future. We are freed to concentrate on the now. We can live in the
moment. We can work for and as if the world is as God intends, a world where God’s righteousness and justice reign.
What a wonderful gift such a hope is! We can freely engage in living that reflects the world Jesus saw. We can behave as if Jesus has returned in his glory. Our labors for peace, justice, and righteousness are a part of what is and is to be. Our hope assures us. Thanks be to God.
How will you now live given your hope in God and God’s promise?
Dialogue with your family, friends, God. (Use your imagination if family and friends are not present.) Pray your dialogue with God.
Come, Lord Jesus, come. Amen.
Our Hope and Promise:
Future Living or
Future Assurance and Present Living?
What does it mean to hope? Are you a hope person? Do you see your hopes as just wishful dreaming, or are they things which you are relatively sure will be? Are real hopes to you those seeming impossibilities that somehow you are sure will happen? Indeed what does it mean to hope?
The Old Testament prophets at times preached that despite the terrible conditions in which the Israelites lived and in spite of the justifiable punishment they saw God inflict, the people could rightly hope that God would save, God would restore his people, God would come.
The writers of the New Testament, likewise in the face of dire conditions and obvious reasons for doubt, believed that Jesus would return in glory. The day of the Lord, the day of righteousness and justice is coming. The Son of Man will return and usher in the Kingdom of God. Their lives were lives based on hope! They held the hope with assurance without assurances. The future for them had already begun. Jesus resurrected was the first fruit, the first of many to come.
Do we live in that hope? Is it real?
Imagine for a moment that indeed the future is assured; that that for we hope will be. This so, we no longer need worry about what is to come, we need no longer plan diligently for the future. We are freed to concentrate on the now. We can live in the
moment. We can work for and as if the world is as God intends, a world where God’s righteousness and justice reign.
What a wonderful gift such a hope is! We can freely engage in living that reflects the world Jesus saw. We can behave as if Jesus has returned in his glory. Our labors for peace, justice, and righteousness are a part of what is and is to be. Our hope assures us. Thanks be to God.
How will you now live given your hope in God and God’s promise?
Dialogue with your family, friends, God. (Use your imagination if family and friends are not present.) Pray your dialogue with God.
Come, Lord Jesus, come. Amen.
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