Hope in Christ

What are you hoping for these days? Are you hoping for greener pastures or mountaintop experiences? Are you hoping for more experiences and encounters with the divine, and finding great value in the exclusivity of personal revelation? You may be right – there may be great value in that. But equally as likely is the possibility that those experiences and encounters could cause you to exalt self. Often times, our personal experiences of God, or what we think are divine encounters, could cause us to think more highly of ourselves than we ought.

This is exactly what Paul was recognizing about himself in 2 Corinthians 12. He had just had an encounter with the divine that gave him exclusive knowledge and insight. But rather than thinking himself more favored or more spiritually enlightened than others, notice Paul’s reaction – he recognized the danger of thinking too highly of himself and his personal experience. Not only that, but he acknowledged the fact that God allowed something very difficult and debilitating to enter into his life in order to humble him in some significant ways.

I would imagine that “a messenger of Satan to harass me” is no walk in the park. And yet, despite the agony of this chronic condition, Paul had the humility to see the greater purpose. So the question is, can the same be said for you and me? Its only human nature to place our hope and confidence in what excites our passions and feeds our innermost desires. However, those can become breeding grounds for boasting in ourselves – OUR knowledge and wisdom, OUR spiritual maturity, OUR blessings and breakthroughs, OUR victories and triumphs. And if left to our own fleshly hearts and minds, those good things could actually cause us to think we’re more highly favored than others. Why else would God bless me so tremendously? It must be because I earned it by being a good Christian….I must have done something especially pleasing to God…I’m special!

Is that true? Is that where we find our hope?

Paul writes in Romans 15:13, “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.” Our hope abounds in our faith in Christ, and nowhere else. Not in our conditions and circumstances, but in the joy and peace that come by way of the Holy Spirit as we trust in the Lord, and not in self.

This week, let’s be open to God’s sovereign will to deprive us of self-exaltation and self-promotion and self-reliance, so that we can truly abide in Him as our only source of hope.