Hope not Hype
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.Romans 15:13
Good morning, afternoon, or evening, my friends…whatever time you’re reading this gospel-sanity devo! Over the course of the next several days, I want us to marinate in the theme of hope, an enormously important, joy-producing, peace-effecting category in the Scriptures. In fact it’s so important that God himself is revealed as “the God of hope“-the architect, the fountainhead, the aqueduct, the guarantee of hope.
What are you hoping for? It’s an honest question, one that some of you will readily answer back, “Nothing, absolutely nothing. Hoping is too exhausting and costly. I’d rather expect little and not have my heart slammed again. It hurts too much to hope. I’ve had it with hype and non-producing hope. Que sera sera, what will be will be.”
If that is you, I understand. I’ve definitely been there before, and am very capable of going there again. But most of the time when I go to that place it’s because I’m hoping for things God never promised, or I’m hoping on my timetable, and not God’s.
So here’s my plan. To make this next series of gospel-sanity devos interactive, I invite each of you to be meditating on Revelation 21:1-22:6, a portion of Scripture that presents a redemptive smorgasbord of delights that the God of hope has actually promised-things that are already beginning to happen because of Jesus’ resurrection, but things that will only be FULLY realized when Jesus returns.
As we belly up to this most glorious gospel-smorgasbord, may the God of hope fill us with joy and peace that we might overflow with hope, for his glory and the benefit of others. So go ahead and start reading Revelation 21:1-22:6 and begin making a list of what you see God has actually signed on for in Jesus! “Hype, come out and be gone, in Jesus’ name!” “Hope, capture afresh these tired, unbelieving, cynical, too-easily-satisfied hearts of ours!”