In that day they will say, “Surely this is our God; we trusted in him, and he saved us. This is the LORD, we trusted in him; let us rejoice and be glad in his salvation.” (Isaiah 25:9, NIV)
A round of golf is often a sequence of episodes. All the scores from all the holes are added together in the end, but when we sit down with our playing companions after a round, the stories we recall are of a single shot here and a crazy hole there.
When we think of hope in a biblical sense, we sometimes see it as one big theme. But the hope that God reveals in Scripture comes in several forms, each of which deserves singular attention. So this week, we will make five stops along the way of hope, looking at what God offers to us in this beautiful arena.
Today, let’s consider the hope of salvation.
When we live our lives apart from Christ, we are not living outside the circle of his love for us, in the sense that he cares for us and desires that we turn to him and be saved. But we are living outside the fullness of his love, because we make our own choices apart from his righteous design.
In our time, there are those who, not recognizing this would make him an enabler of sorts, want God to dismiss “all that stuff about rules” and just love us. Their idea of love is something akin to the unfailing affection of dogs or candlelight and roses. Certainly, these are nice things, and love may be found in them, but they are not the fullness of love.
The love of God is complete in its nature, which means that it hates the things that would harm us. And while it may, in a glance, seem “loving” to jump in and rescue us from every pain or consequence of our ill actions, such interventions would only gloss over our sins rather than equip us to see them. So God allows what we allow for our own children: a measure of trouble for what we do wrong. Letting a child learn from their mistakes is part of the big picture of love that moves them toward maturity. A loving parent does not trap their children in childhood; rather, they raise their children to be healthy adults.
What God does when he allows us to experience the pain of our sin is bring us to one critical understanding: we’re no darn good. We are in a dark hole and we can’t find our way out. What we need, what we cannot generate for ourselves, is light.
This is where the hope of salvation shines bright. When I am lost, unable to rescue myself, I need a savior. If I am drowning, toss me a life ring. If I am choking, perform the Heimlich maneuver. If I have fallen asleep at the wheel, shake me to wake me or reach over and start steering. And if I am dead in my sins, breathe into me the life that allows me to walk with Jesus. He is my only hope for this condition called sin. Thank God that I’ve found him!
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Jeff Hopper
February 3, 2014
Copyright 2014 Links Players International
The Links Daily Devotional appears Monday-Friday at www.linksplayers.com.