"Future hope"...at first reading this sounds like a repetitive phrase. How could a hope not be "future"? This morning I was reading through Proverbs, chapter 24. Verse 14 seemed to stand out: 14 Know also that wisdom is sweet to your soul;
if you find it, there is a future hope for you, and your hope will not be cut off. I thought about the hope that we have who have come to grasp the love of our Lord. Our hope is a future hope. It is beyond the scope of this natural life. It finds its fulfillment in the heavenly realm and it is not realized until we go through the door of death and leave this shell...this natural form behind. Our greatest aspirations cannot be realized until we experience what the world fears the most: "death". When we find the Lord, or more correctly, when we realize that He has found us we have found wisdom, as the writer of the Proverb says. I thought about how so many of our hopes are short-sighted ones that will be realized here. I also remembered that when the Bible talks about hope, it refers to an assured expectation as opposed to a wishful anticipation. As Paul says in Romans, chapter 8, 24 For we were saved in this hope, but hope that is seen is not hope; for why does one still hope for what he sees? 25 But if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with perseverance. and again in 1 Corinthians 15:19 If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men the most pitiable. 20 But now Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.
if you find it, there is a future hope for you, and your hope will not be cut off. I thought about the hope that we have who have come to grasp the love of our Lord. Our hope is a future hope. It is beyond the scope of this natural life. It finds its fulfillment in the heavenly realm and it is not realized until we go through the door of death and leave this shell...this natural form behind. Our greatest aspirations cannot be realized until we experience what the world fears the most: "death". When we find the Lord, or more correctly, when we realize that He has found us we have found wisdom, as the writer of the Proverb says. I thought about how so many of our hopes are short-sighted ones that will be realized here. I also remembered that when the Bible talks about hope, it refers to an assured expectation as opposed to a wishful anticipation. As Paul says in Romans, chapter 8, 24 For we were saved in this hope, but hope that is seen is not hope; for why does one still hope for what he sees? 25 But if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with perseverance. and again in 1 Corinthians 15:19 If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men the most pitiable. 20 But now Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.
As we celebrate the long-ago birth of our Savior let's remember that because of His life, death and resurrection we have the hope of walking in Heaven...we are confident that we will be with Him...death is not the end of hope, but the entrance.
blessings,
Rob Smith
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