Sustaining Hope Available in Christ

Posted on June 13, 2023 by Elizabeth Welte in Freedom Fighters

“Afflictions make the heart more deep, more experimental, more knowing and profound, and so, more able to hold, to contain, and beat more.” ~ Bunyan

 

In the garden, death reigned when Adam chose to treasure himself above God. He did so by disobeying God’s perfect Word and relied on His own finite wisdom; essentially telling God he could live without Him. This is the path the leads to death to which God referred to when He warned Adam, ‘that you shall surely die.’ It’s this choice, that we all make, that Paul is referring to in Romans 1:18-23 where we choose the creation over the Creator; and because this choice is designed to reveal who we love or treasure above all else, God gives us over to that which we desire, revealing His perfect justice, grace, and love. Choosing God by putting our faith in His Son, Jesus Christ is to choose life; choosing ourselves is to choose death having disconnected ourselves from the very design (the Way, the Truth, and Life) and the Designer or source of all things. This is like trying to live off of batteries with no way to recharge them. They eventually run out of energy and you ‘surely die.’ It is for this reason Paul writes, ‘that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection (The Spirit and ‘re-charger’), and may share in His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death (the way to obtain this power is to die to your willful self), that by all means possible I may attain the resurrection(His life giving Spirit) from the dead (being separated from God by our own choice).”

 

There is life giving and life sustaining Hope found in Jesus. But it is only available to those who ‘treasure God above all else’; having understood that there is no other ‘way’, for He is Absolute Perfection. All other choices are to choose the pathway that leads to death, eternally separated from that which is joy, peace, hope, and the greatest of all… love.

 

Choose wisely….

 

“Either way, Christ’s love controls us. Since we believe that Christ died for all, we also believe that we have all died to our old life. He died for everyone so that those who receive his new life will no longer live for themselves. Instead, they will live for Christ, who died and was raised for them.” (2 Corinthians 5:14-15)

 

Praying you choose Christ today

 

Written by David Brown: David Brown is a husband, father, grandfather, Pastor with a Masters of Religious Studies and a Professor of Philosophy and Comparative Religions. Dave is the Associate Pastor of Pemberton’s First Baptist Church. He is the author of two devotional books, “From a Chair by the Window.” And “#PrayerWinsThe Day”.

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This Week’s Verse to Memorize:“Therefore, in all things He had to be made like His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. ¹⁸ For in that He Himself has suffered, being tempted, He is able to aid those who are tempted.” Hebrews 2:17-18