HOPE WAIT AND REST

HOPE MEANS TO WAIT AND REST

There is no medicine like HOPE - the expectation that tomorrow will be better than today.

And for the Christian that hope is no idle dream. Our future can brim with expectation because of Jesus’ promise,    “And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.”(John 14:3)

But in the meantime we need the daily reminder and encouragement that our waiting is not in vain.

HOPE is the Hebrew word yahal/yachal which means to WAIT, to REST in expectation, to REMAIN STATIONARY until the arrival of some PERSON or EVENT. For believers the PERSON is Jesus our HOPE (1Ti 1:1) and the EVENT is His Second Coming (Titus 2:13) which includes the consummation of our salvation and our "adoption as sons, the redemption of our body" (glorification - Ro 8:23-note).

And so HOPE is not hype but is a very real and ever present invitation to look ahead eagerly and with confident expectation that the best is yet to come.

Corrie Ten Boom said it this way "LOOK AROUND AND BE DISTRESSED. LOOK INSIDE AND BE DEPRESSED. LOOK AT JESUS (our hope ) AND BE AT REST.”

Indeed we must continually fix our eyes on Jesus (Heb 12:2), for outside of Him, there is no hope! We need to recall that Jesus understands what we are experiencing for He Himself said "My soul is DEEPLY GRIEVED  to the point of death," (Mt 26:38) and thus He is able to "sympathize with our weaknesses." (Heb 4:15-note).

As John Piper says “we must fight the fight of faith (1Ti 1:18, 1Ti 6:12, 2Ti 4:7). We must PREACH to our SOULS a sermon of hope…We must SET BEFORE OUR OWN SOUL THE BANQUET OF PROMISES that God has made to us and FEED our faith to the full (Ro 10:17-note, Mt 4:4, 1Pe 2:2-note). Then it may be said of us as it was of Stephen and Barnabas: “They were filled with faith and with the Holy Spirit." (Acts 6:5, Acts 11:24)”