SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 12/20/2016 10:57 PM
My Worship Time Focus: The Gospel Truth Rests in Love
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Colossians 1:5
Message of the verses: “3 We
give thanks to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for
you, 4 since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and the love which you have for all the saints; 5 because of the hope laid up for you in heaven,
of which you previously heard in the word of truth, the gospel.”
I wanted to quote verses three through five to include the faith, love, and hope which we have been looking at in our last several Spiritual Diaries. All three of these have to do with the gospel.
John MacArthur writes that “Faith and hope are inseparably linked. We believe, and so we hope. Whenever I think of the word hope as how it is used in the New Testament I will think about a verse that Paul writes to Titus where he says “looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus (Titus 2:13).”
Paul says in our verse from Colossians today that our hope is laid up in heaven, and MacArthur writes “Apokeimai (‘laid up’) means ‘in store,’ or ‘reserved.’ Peter speaks of ‘an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you’ (1 Pet. 1:4). The writer of Hebrews speaks of ‘laying hold of the hope set before us. This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, a hope both sure and steadfast and one which enters within the veil’ (Heb. 6:18-19). Hope is the Christian’s anchor chain, connecting him inseparably to God’s throne.”
Now I have often said that hope is a noun when it comes to our hope in the Lord as opposed to a verb where it is not sure, for our hope in the Lord is a sure thing. Now as we think of it in that way we can, because of this sure hope, sacrifice the present on the altar of the future. Now we know that this runs contrary to human nature, in fact probably the opposite. John MacArthur’s dad would tell John when he was a young man that he should not sacrifice the future on the altar of the immediate. We know that the world wants something right now, but because we have this hope that is sure then we can wait because we know that our future is going to be with our Lord forever in heaven.
We have the greatest example in our Lord when He was on earth getting ready to die on the cross for our sins that His glory would come after His suffering, and that was a sure thing as we are learning in the 14th chapter of the gospel of John. Jesus said “"You heard that I said to you, ’I go away, and I will come to you.’ If you loved Me, you would have rejoiced because I go to the Father, for the Father is greater than I (John 14:28).” Jesus was telling His disciples that His coming back to them was a sure thing even though He knew that He was about to go to the cross, and He was also telling them that they should be rejoicing because He was going back to the Father to live with Him, and for that they should rejoice. These were all sure things.
Moses was another example of waiting for the good things to come and not get things now: “24 By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, 25 choosing rather to endure ill-treatment with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin, 26 considering the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt; for he was looking to the reward. 27 By faith he left Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king; for he endured, as seeing Him who is unseen.” Moses left a life in Egypt that humanly speaking would have made him rich beyond our imagine. Moses did the right thing for when he died he went to a far better place than Egypt.
We too have to remember that what is coming when we get to heaven to be with the Lord is for better than anything we do here on earth.
12/20/2016 11:24 PM
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