Hope’s Enduring Power
Hope’s Enduring Power
“and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”
Romans 5:5 (ESV)
This living hope which burns as a lamp within His own remains bright and influential in the hearts of those who know its power. It is a hope that holds us fast, unwavering, and undaunted through the testings of life. It rests upon the power of Love received through the Holy Spirit; it is the breath of God Himself. He has not only given us a hope by which we purify ourselves, but it also will not bring shame into our lives.
“And everyone having this hope on Him
purifies himself even as that One is pure..”
1 John 3:3 (LITV)
The Hope born of God far transcends that of our future hope of heaven. It stirs the heart to the reality of His resurrection Life becoming ours in the life we now live. There is an unconscious pursuit of purity and holiness for this hope to be realized. This pursuit results from His hope imparted to us in the Person of Christ. Jesus Christ is the source of our Faith, our Hope, and the corresponding power of His Love being worked into our lives through the Holy Spirit.
There is no hope or power to access such a Love apart from our union in Christ Jesus.
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“The apostolic church thought more about the Second Coming of Jesus Christ than about death and heaven. The early Christians were looking, not for a cleft in the ground called a grave but for a cleavage in the sky called Glory.”
– Alexander MacLaren
BT
Yes! Hope has us, here and hereafter in the holy, happy, highlands of heaven because we are more than conquerors over all conditions and circumstances in Christ Who Is Love, in His stainlessly sinless, severely suffering, sufficiently saving, splendorously sanctifying Self, doing altogether compassionatey and completely for us that which we nor anyone else could never have done for ourselves.
Galatians 5:6 AMP
5 And because you [really] are [His] sons, God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying out, “Abba! Father!”
1 John 4;8,16 AMP
8 The one who does not love has not become acquainted with God [does not and never did know Him], for God is love. [He is the originator of love, and it is an enduring attribute of His nature.] 9 By this the love of God was displayed in us, in that God has sent His [One and] only begotten Son [the One who is truly unique, the only One of His kind] into the world so that we might live through Him.
16 We have come to know [by personal observation and experience], and have believed [with deep, consistent faith] the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides continually in him.
1 Corinthians 13:13
13 And now there remain: faith [abiding trust in God and His promises], hope [confident expectation of eternal salvation], love [unselfish love for others growing out of God’s love for me], these three [the choicest graces]; but the greatest of these is love.
Romans 8:18 AMP
18 For I consider [from the standpoint of faith] that the sufferings of the present life are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is about to be revealed to us and in us!
2 Corinthians 4:16-18
16 Therefore we do not become discouraged [spiritless, disappointed, or afraid]. Though our outer self is [progressively] wasting away, yet our inner self is being [progressively] renewed day by day. 17 For our momentary, light distress [this passing trouble] is producing for us an eternal weight of glory [a fullness] beyond all measure [surpassing all comparisons, a transcendent splendor and an endless blessedness]! 18 So we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are unseen; for the things which are visible are temporal [just brief and fleeting], but the things which are invisible are everlasting and imperishable.
Much of the church lives in a mindset of grace, bellieving and expecting that God will forgive all sins, and never seek to live for more than a moment. It is a defeated mindset, and does not expect any kind of victory, but only to limp along into glory.
Blessings
Beloved brother, do you not believe Christ Jesus, the Bridegroom God of all grace and all glory, shall have an endtime bride, His perfect workmanship, who is victorious, more than a conqueror, without spot, wrinkle, or any such thing?
Be not afraid nor dismayed; in His time and in His way, He shall for Himself have through endless eons of eternity the beautified bride His ardently affectionate, actualizing Abba has altogether faithfully promised the Son of His love.
Ephesians 5:25 AMP
“… just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, 26 so that He might sanctify the church, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word [of God], 27 so that [in turn] He might present the church to Himself in glorious splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy [set apart for God] and blameless.
Wholeheartedly, I agree with you that the church tremendously, exceedingly needs, as per Colossians 3, to set her affection on things above where her Bridegroom King is seated at the honoring, mighty right hand of the Father and not on things on the earth, this futile, fallen world system engulfed in, enslaved by, and egregiously serving darkness.
Grace to you and peace be multiplied from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Yes, I do believe that Christ will have his perfect bride. My reference applies more to the way that so many believers will take their salvation very lightly as there are so many others who have full joy and gratitude for the calling.
Peter did write:
“…17 For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God?
18 And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?
19 Wherefore let them that suffer according to the will of God commit the keeping of their souls to him in well doing, as unto a faithful Creator…” 1 Peter 4:17-19
I’m not one that believes in a fragile salvation, but one who believes that we are given a great privilege which we must protect.
I do believe that Christ will have his perfect bride. Thank you for your reminder, I have a great confidence in his word.
God bless you, my friend.
Thanks much for your care and concern, my esteemed comrade in Christ.
James at 2:13 tells us unequivocally that mercy triumphs over justice. The Holy Spirit’s loving force of this is that where mercy and justice seem to conflict, mercy omnisciently, gloriously, victoriously wins in praise and thanksgiving to the Father of mercies and His Christ of all comfort.
Christ’s bride is, as I am certain you well know, not under and never shall be under a curse or any condemnation. Her chastening by her Creator is His enlargement of her capacity to know and go with Him, the Holy One and the Just, to revel richly and rejoice royally in mutual, ecstatic enjoyment and righteous rest, through endless eons of eternity.
Our stubborn sins relentlessly argue against us, but our all-sufficient Christ, Who adores His Father and cherishes His bride, is our awe-striking Advocate, interceding for us with intensity of intent, thus obviating the need for the judgment that we deserve to receive.
In the heartening, humbling overflow of such underserved mercy and unmerited favor, we are divinely enabled, holy empowered to extravagantly show the One Beautiful God’s magnificence of mercy and munificence gladly, gratefully, toward others. O Alleluia! Alleluia!
Yah! Alleluia! Let everything that has breath and every breath of my life praise Yah for His mercy!
Burning blessings of Jesus’ beauty in your being and intimate blessings of loving affection from His holy heart as Lord of history and King of heaven.
Thank you so much for this response, I am still learning to believe in the abundant overflowing grace of God. My background in the church has been with much pentecostal doctrine, and I guess I am still holding on to vestiges of punishment on the unfaithful.
Part of my view so desperatly wants the grace promised, but I fiind it difficult to see a passionless church being rewarded, and I guess I hold myself to it as well.
I believe that God is very gracious, and my finite heart is jealous to see a vibrant victorious church rise up, and still waiting.
Much blessings to you, and thank you.
O past and gone! How great is God! How small am I! A mote in the illimitable sky, Amidst the glory deep, and wide, and high.
O heaven’s unclouded sun. There to forget myself evermore; Lost, swallowed up in Love’s immensity. The sea that knows no sounding and no shore, God only there, not I.
-Gerhard Tersteegen
The jealous, zealous adversary attempts untiringly to diabolically veil, hinder, diminish, and block the revelation of God’s gracious, glorious triumphant love for us in more than a few diverse ways, but the most subtle and deadly way is deceiving us into thinking we are required to religiously work to merit the love of the God Who Himself Is Love.
Galatians 5:6 trumpets the transcending truth-treasure that faith works by love. Love is the divinely driving dynamicity for our faith. Remove or diminish love, and faith ceases to be as effectual and efficacious it should be.
Our faith, holy, hinges on love because God Is Holy and God Is Love. The One Beautiful Triune God has personally promised each one us that nothing in all creation can separate us from His love and that He will never forget us, fail us or forsake us
1 Corinthians 13:13 AMP
13 And now there remain: faith [abiding trust in God and His promises], hope [confident expectation of eternal salvation], love [unselfish love for others growing out of God’s love for me], these three [the choicest graces]; but the greatest of these is love.
Purposefully positioned in the center between faith and love is hope—hope for here and heaven hereafter, being fostered and fortified by both, faith functioning by love.
The dilly dallying about to nobly believe God’s promises shall come to pass is because of unbelief, but the root of unbelief is deficient expression, manifestation, and demonstration of the God Who Is Love to us, in us, and through us to others
Many of us strive harder to believe when we should be trustingly, habitually asking and opening our spirits to a tenderizing, royally richer revelation of our King’s love for His blood bought, brought bride and glad, grateful acceptance of her.
The greatest blessing any person can receive is a greater revelation of Who the Holy Trinity of Loving, Living infinity Really is. The greatest revelation of all that shall be endlessly in heaven. To know Him, to grow in Him, to sow to Him, and to show Him to others is the fire of my Shulamite desire.