Finding Confident Hope – James MacDonald
13Therefore, 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.14As
obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former
ignorance, 15but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in
all your conduct, 16since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I
am holy.” —1 Peter 1:13-16
It doesn’t take much to see that the whole world has gone crazy.
With all this insanity going on, what keeps our faith engaged? Exhorting us to
endurance, the apostle Peter urged us to prepare our “minds for action, and
being sober-minded, set (our) hope fully on the grace that will be brought to
(us) at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 1:13).
The energy to live the Christian life is found in one place—in
our focused, conscious choice to put our hope in Jesus. Hope is the confident
expectation that something better is coming tomorrow. As you look to the
future:
Don’t set your hope on your physical health—set
your hope on Jesus. “Though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner
nature is being renewed day by day (2
Corinthians 4:16).
Don’t set your hope on stuff—set your hope on
Jesus“For one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions (Luke 12:15).
Don’t set your hope on people—set your hope on
Jesus.“Put not your trust in . . . man, in whom there is no salvation . . .
Blessed is he whose . . . hope is in the LORD” (Psalms
146:3-5).
No leader, pastor, family, or spouse can be everything that we
hope and dream they will be. People, places, positions always let us down. Only
Jesus is worthy of all our hopes and all our confidence. Maybe you find
yourself a little down today. Like Peter standing on the water, the moment you
take your eyes off the Lord you start to sink (Matthew
14:22-23). Lift up your eyes, set your hope fully on Jesus.
Our confident expectation is in God, who sees, knows, and will
ultimately turn an upside-down world right-side up at the appearing of our Lord.
Every righteous decision will be rewarded. Every wrong choice will be judged.
Every motive will be revealed.
Do you need energy to keep your faith engaged? Do you need to
get refocused on the real solution? Do you need hope that will endure?
Set your hope fully on Jesus. —James MacDonald
Journal:
· How has my relationship with Jesus satisfied me in the past?
· How can I tell if my hope is in anything other than Jesus?
Prayer – Father, thank You for
sending Your Son to be my hope. You knew that this world would never satisfy my
longings, and so You sent Your precious Son to do that. Forgive me when I look
to anything else for my hope, and thank You for the pain that reminds me when I
have moved my hope into anything other than Christ. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Sid Stewart
Executive Director
864 226-6193
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