Skip to main content

The Object of our Hope-Joy Series #4


It’s amazing the way God uses scripture to change your life.  
How you can read a verse a thousand times and not completely get it.
How you can recite a passage over and over again, but it’s not till you’re experiencing something specific that the depth of the truth rings out...

“...He has given us new birth into a living hope...” (1 Pet 1:3)

A living hope?  That seems pretty big.  What does that mean?

Peter continues...
“...through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead”  (1 Pet 1:3)
This living hope is made possible through Christ’s resurrection. 
He is our hope.  From His living; our living hope.

“Though you have not seen Him, you love Him, and though you do not see Him now, you believe in Him and rejoice with inexpressible and glorious joy.” (1 Pet 1:8)
When He is the object of our hope, joy follows!

Hebrews 6:18-20 reads:

“God did this so that, by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to take hold of the hope set before us may be greatly encouraged.  We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm, and secure.  It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain, where our forerunner, Jesus, has entered on our behalf.  He has become a high priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek.”

Our hope is tied to Jesus.   Our hope is in Him.  
It is living because He is living.
It enters behind the veil because He enters behind the veil.

He is the anchor of our soul.

In the words of Josh Garrels,

“Anchor of my soul, you sustain.
When I’m in the dark, you remain
good to me.”

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Clothed with Him

Romans 13:14 But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires. This sentence comes right after a verse about giving up sins.   And I’m contemplating what it looks like to give up my sinful ways of thinking and replace it with the way Jesus thinks.  I’m wondering what it means to “put [him] on.” And the weather has begun to change, so I pick out a shirt that I haven’t worn yet that’s more suited for this fall-ish weather.  It’s one of many hand-me-downs that my best friend has given me. And I go to church, and the thing I keep sensing the Spirit telling me is that I am loved.  That I need not consider the thoughts and opinions and judgements of others, but rather listen to what He is speaking over me: that I am fully loved. That I need to really believe that I am not perfect, nor will I be here on this earth. That most of the anxiety and uncertainty that I experience is because I keep trying to reconc...

Bearing WIth One Another-Joy Series #2

It’s in reading Ann Voscamp’s blog “A Holy Experience” that I get that maybe I’ve been viewing some of this wrong... When I’m so overwhelmed with self pity and hopelessness, I feel like I can’t handle anyone else’s stuff.  How am I supposed to bear twice the burden I already am?   “Burden is only a weight when borne alone.  When the burden is borne together, by a Body, the burden becomes bond — soul strengthener.” ( http://www.aholyexperience.com/2013/04/when-life-burns-what-we-could-do-for-each-other/   ) But what if bearing another’s burden is actually a distribution of weight? Because you’re bearing each other’s burdens rather than trying to bear your own. So, rather than you and everyone else trying desperately to stand under the weight of their burdens, you all stand together and bear everyone’s burdens.  Then when in your moments of weakness, the strength of others helps you keep standing. That’s what the Body does. I continue reading...

Death to Life

It’s good Friday.   The words of Bonhoeffer ruminate in my head and the world around me vacillates between winter and spring. The day, the words, the surroundings speak of death. Those trailing flowers I pass by every day on my way to work have moved from tiny buds to full-fledged blooms and I’m reminded that death always brings about life. The words of a wise man, spoken years ago in a time of vision seeming to die, ring in my head again: “In order for something new to come, something has to die.” It speaks a hope over the death of dreams and a season that has made me aware of just how failing my flesh is.   The thoughts leave as quickly as they enter and I go about my day. I find myself skimming the newspaper handed to me by the man changing my oil.   My eyes are drawn to a section on chronic pain and I read about a newer perspective of doctors regarding this issue: the focus has shifted from attempting to take away all pain, to trying to re...