The Hill of Hope ~

"Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit." Romans 15:13

Who is the source of eternal hope? Of life? Of Salvation? God is! And how do we receive the Holy Spirit? Through His word! Ephesians 1 tells us: "In Him you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in who also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory." God's own Spirit comes to dwell within the believer, securing and preserving his eternal salvation. How wonderful does that sound to you? It infuses us with hope, which we basically must have to continue a faithful walk on this earth. 

                                                                                                                           

My brother, Ron, has this to say about hope: "Hope involves both desire and expectation. Some people desire to go to heaven who really have no basis for expecting it. A person shows a proper attitude [Had you forgotten that these lessons are also a discussion of right attitudes?] toward God when his hope is laid up in heaven. To anyone who has this hope, Ephesians says that it is an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast; it is a hill to look up to in time of trouble to help one to maintain his faith firm to the end. Doubt, fear, anxiety, etc., may be erased completely by hope. Let us 'lay hold of the hope set before us'."                                  

                                                                                                     

Now let's look at some verses which tell us that Christ is our hope. 1 Timothy 1 introduces the apostle Paul as "an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the commandment of God our Savior and the Lord Jesus Christ, our hope." It's because Christ bought our salvation with his own blood that Christians have hope. His death covers believers from the cross in both directions. I didn't know that until fairly recently--or at least I hadn't thought of it in that way. It's so comforting to know that anything and everything pertaining to our being saved has been thought of by our Father in heaven.

There is a message of hope in Luke 24, which tells us that "thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and rise from the dead the third day, and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem." This is often referred to as the Great Commission. Who better to preach the message of hope than the witnesses to all that had happened? Together at this time were several of the disciples and apostles and the Christ stood in the middle of them as proof of His resurrection. The result was Paul's exclamation in Romans: "For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek." And so the message was carried to all the then-known world by those who believed on the name of Jesus Christ. 

There is much more to be said about the Hill of Hope, so we can look forward to another time together for the deepening of our faith. 

Have a good weekend! 

Blessings...Mimi