TUESDAY March 26th
Romans 8:24-25
‘For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.
These verses link back to the previous verse we considered in yesterday’s devotion, our hope is based upon the future reality of the resurrection or the redemption of our bodies. It is a hope that is based not upon something we can see but upon something that we wait for with patience and eager anticipation.
It is also a hope which is a confident hope that we are assured of because of the fact of the resurrection of Jesus and based upon the promises of Jesus.
Remember when Jesus went to the grave of Lazarus, he spoke to Martha the words we know so well, ‘“I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?”’ John 11:25-26.
We can hope for many things in this life, but many of those things we hope for may never happen, because the hope is based upon several other things that need to fall into place somehow or other to make it happen. But not with the future resurrection, everything that needed to fit into place has already happened, Jesus has died and has risen again, as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:20 he is the firstfruit, his own resurrection is a guarantee that the graves will one day open and the dead in Christ will be raised.
Job had this confident hope even before Jesus had proven he had power over death! Listen to what he has said in Job 19:25-27 I will capitalise some of it for emphasis, ‘For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth. AND AFTER MY SKIN HAS BEEN DESTROYED, YET IN MY FLESH I SHALL SEE GOD, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another.’
This hope should cause us to wait with encouragement, perseverance and with a full commitment to the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, for we have not put our hope, nor our faith in empty promises, or based them upon wishful thinking. We have put our hope fully and confidently on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness. He is our hope, therefore we live in earnest expectation.