Notes of Faith January 21, 2025
Regaining Hope
My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle, and are spent without hope.
Job 7:6
The word hope occurs sixteen times in the book of Job, but most of the references are about how Job lost hope during his multiple tragedies. He said, “What strength do I have, that I should hope?” (Job 6:11) And he said, “He breaks me down on every side, and I am gone; my hope He has uprooted like a tree” (Job 19:10).
Any of us can lose hope when we’re having difficulties and not sure what God is doing in our lives. We can lose hope because others have mistreated us or even because of our own mistakes. When we’re feeling sorry for ourselves and sinking into discouragement, we’re letting the biblical quality of hope erode in our minds.
If this is true for you, read in the first chapter of 1 Peter about our “living hope” that comes from God’s abundant mercy (1:3), about the importance of resting our hope fully on God’s grace (1:13), and about projecting our hope forward in anticipation of Christ’s return (1:21).
Where there is no hope in the future, there is no power in the present.
John Maxwell
1 Peter 1:6-13
6 In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. 7 These have come so that your faith — of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire — may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. 8 Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, 9 for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls.
10 Concerning this salvation, the prophets, who spoke of the grace that was to come to you, searched intently and with the greatest care, 11 trying to find out the time and circumstances to which the Spirit of Christ in them was pointing when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow. 12 It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves but you, when they spoke of the things that have now been told you by those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven. Even angels long to look into these things.
13 Therefore, prepare your minds for action; be self-controlled; set your hope fully on the grace to be given you when Jesus Christ is revealed.
Our hope is an eternal hope! And though I pray that you and I never go through what was written for us in the book of Job in our Bibles, we all experience trials and troubles. Jesus said everyone will. But He also let us know that He overcame the world. As we follow Him we too, overcome the world and the things in it! Let us persevere and endure this world, looking forward in hope for that which has been prepared for us in Christ Jesus!
Pastor Dale