We hope that we will get that job promotion. We hope that our marriage to our spouse will bring the happiness and joy that we desire. We hope that our children will behave. We hope that a friend doesn't have cancer. We hope that the new house will turn out to be our perfect dream home. We hope that our kids will stay well and not get sick. We hope that our vacation will go smoothly. We hope that we can catch up on sleep after not getting enough. We hope that we will excel in school, jobs, and sports. We hope....we hope....
What exactly is hope?
Hope is simply a feeling of expectation or desire for a certain thing to happen. It is wanting something to happen or be the case. (taken from google dictionary)
People's hopes and dreams originate from a desire to live in a perfect world. Therefore they place their hope in things that will give them such a world.
Yes, humans desire a perfect world, but where did that desire emerge from?
Humans did not originally live in a broken and imperfect world...they lived in an eternal state with a perfect God.
Whether a person is a believer or not...we have forever instilled inside of us because that is what we first lived in....
When Adam and Eve first lived in the garden of Eden, they lived in utopia. They lived in an eternal state in the presence of God. Every hope and desire was given because their hope and desire was placed in God. Eternity was beautiful, perfect, and full of everything that we keep searching for here and now in this world.
But all that changed when they rebelled against God and did things their own way....Eve hoped to be like God and gave in to the devil's lies and ate the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. She placed her hope in the wrong thing...herself.
As a result, this beautiful utopia that we were supposed to live in became an awful dystopia.
So now people spend their lives in this broken messed up world trying to place their hope in broken things only to discover hopelessness....their desire to live in a perfect world has become impossible....
or not....
Thankfully Jesus came to restore our broken lives to God. He gives us hope by paying a debt we couldn't pay on the cross so that we could have that utopia...eternity with Him forever. All we have to do is believe and place our trust and hope in Him.
Jesus is our hope....
He gives us ETERNAL HOPE....
So here is the major question...
Why do we, as Christians, continue to live our lives hoping in the here and now?
Why do we continue to place our hope in people, situations, ideas?
Why do we place our hope in our families, our homes, our jobs, and our friends?
Why do we try to jam pack our lives with hope in broken things as if this is the only chance we have for a utopia?
Perhaps it is because we don't fully comprehend that our hope for a perfect world doesn't come from this life on earth...
2 Corinthians 4:16-18 says, 16 Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. 17 For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. 18 So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
We don't lose heart because this life's troubles are only temporary. We are wasting away and will die someday, but that is not the end. So we focus on what is unseen...
eternity with Jesus...
Think about this life in comparison to eternity...our life here an now is like a mist as stated in James 4:14. Eternity is forever.....
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| OUR WHOLE LIFE: The dot is life on earth...the line is eternity with Jesus. |
If we truly understood and lived our lives for eternity with Jesus instead of making our forever here on earth, how would living our lives change....
Instead of hoping for all of the good things that we believe this life has to offer, we would be preparing and pursuing for the life to come.
Instead of pursuing the perfect job, perfect house, perfect retirement, perfect marriage, wouldn't we be preparing ourselves and others for eternity?
There is a beautiful missionary couple I know that had it all. The wife was a nurse with a solid reputation, and the husband had a nice high paying job. They lived in a beautiful house with all the comforts that could be offered, but then they realized their true hope...
Jesus.
They realized that this life here and now was temporary, and they are now in Zambia living in tents, traveling from village to village trying to prepare others for eternity by showing them who their true hope is.
Not all of us are called to become missionaries in a far away country, but we are all called to be missionaries in the lives we live here and now.
Take it a step further...suppose you place your hope in eternity with Jesus...the troubles then that we face in this world become temporary in light of the perfect world to come.
Instead of grieving for the loss of a loved one, we would rejoice in where they have gone. Instead of placing false hope in creating perfectly well behaved children, we would place our hope in Jesus and work to prepare our children for eternity, not to make them look perfect in this imperfect world. Instead of falling into despair over the disease that has overtaken our body, we would rejoice in knowing that we will someday have no pain. Instead of responding to a mean co-worker in an unforgiving way, we would display love and forgiveness in order to reflect Jesus so that our co-worker could know true eternal hope. Instead of pursuing wealth, we would show people what true wealth is, knowing Jesus and resting in the hope we have in Him knowing that money here on earth is temporary, but life with Christ is eternal. Instead of trying to see what joy and happiness our spouse can give us, we would be focusing on helping each other with our walk with Christ, preparing each other for eternity.
We no longer place our hope in broken things but in the one who is unbroken and promises us an unbroken world.
Jesus is our hope for a perfect forever world....
So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.....
*To learn more about viewing life through the eyes of eternity, read Paul Tripp's book Forever
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