What's your reason?

This past week I came close to making a potentially bad purchase, related to an ad I came across on an online classified ad site. Long story short, it was a “too good to be true” deal, though it seemed legitimate. In fact, the items for sale may indeed be very real and accurately depicted, though very likely stolen or ill-gotten, at best. I was a bit disappointed, because I thought I had found a great deal on something I had been patiently waiting for, only to find out I was chasing the wind

My 90-day Bible reading brought me this week to 1 Peter, which, in the past was a “go-to” source of mine for a reminder of the eternal security of salvation. After all, Peter uses the direct words for “born again”, followed by imperishable, incorruptible. But I was particularly drawn this time to a word I saw repeated four times in the first chapter, six times over all in the book of 1 Peter.

HOPE

Yes, we have eternal security, and yet we still live here and now, dealing with life’s ups and downs, and we are to be keeping in mind that big picture referred to as hope. Naturally, to hope in someone or something would necessitate that the object of that hope would be reliable, trustworthy, unshakable. That, my friends, is Christ. I can’t list the words that describe Him here, because none of them come close to matching the true glory that is His.

At Christmas time, we celebrate a very long story (eternal!) made to seem short as we see it through our very limited concept of time. God wrapped Christ in human flesh to save us, forever, so that we might place our hope in Him, not in the things of this world, but in Him! We place our hope in Christ, in SPITE of this world, in fact.

Jump ahead to 2 Peter 3:13, where Peter writes, “But according to His promise we are looking for new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells.”

God made a promise.
He backed it up with His Son.
He gave us the down payment of the Holy Spirit (2 Cor. 1:22), so that we might live according to that hope, and be ready to give a reason for that hope (1 Pet. 3:15).
And He’ll come again to gather us to Him. (2 Tess. 2:1)

Here’s to Hope!