Day 29 - A Dream-Maker and a Hope-Giver

As we advance towards celebrations of the first coming of Jesus, the promised Messiah, so too we look forward to a promise of Jesus about His second coming. Until His return we live in confident hope of the promises of God being fulfilled in us and through us as we trust in the God who holds the whole universe in place by His power.

The world seems a rather hopeless place at the moment and, for many, even meaning and purpose, let alone hope, may be a foreign concept as planet earth spins in the vast darkness of the universe. But a HOPE that crosses time and space is one of the major recurring themes in the Bible for the people of God.

Hope that keeps us going through difficult times confidently expecting that things will change even if that means we need to change in the process. Our God is a Dream-Maker and a Hope-Giver.

Jesus said in John 17:24:

Father I desire that those also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory, which you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.

This hope that seemed uppermost in Jesus’ mind was that his followers would see Him in HIs eternal glory as Christ the King. As we long for that day trusting in God to transform us into His likeness (often through our trials of faith), let’s read what the apostle Paul writes to the believers in Thessalonica about Jesus’ hope for us:

But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about those who have died, so that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have died ... For the Lord himself, with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call and with the sound of God’s trumpet, will descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air; and, so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore, encourage one another with these words. - 1 Thess. 4:13, 16-18

Some more words of promise from Jesus in John’s gospel chapter 14:

Do not let your hearts be troubled........if I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also.

We know not the hour nor the day of the second coming of Jesus only that as Jesus indicated in the parable of the five foolish and five wise bridesmaids, that we are to confidently hope for and wait expectedly for His return.

Rico Tice, of Christianity and Hope Explored courses, says this about Hope:

What is HOPE?

The Christian faith is all about hope;

A joyful expectation for the future based on true events of the past, which changes everything about my present.

I hope you have a wonderful Christmas looking forward in time to a glorious future with all the saints and with our Saviour Jesus. Marantha.

Elisabeth Sweeney-Smith