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What Are You Hoping For?By: Joseph H. Murray“If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.” 1Corinthians 15:19 What are we all hoping for, just the blessings of this life? A life of all our needs supplied and a happy hallelujah, shouting time? If this is what we are serving Christ for, our misery is just around the corner. If our hope of life beyond this life isn’t active and intact, our defeats are sure to come sooner than we think. “Blessed be the God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to His abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith ready to be revealed in the last time” (1Pet. 1:3–5). If we are depending on things of this life for hope, we are without hope, for Paul tells us in Romans 8:24 that “hope that is seen is not hope”. The blessings of carnal things are an essential part of the Christian life, and it is a promise of God to supply our every need. But the natural things of this life are tangible, temporal, and can be seen, and are to vanish away. Therefore, a reliance and a trust in these things are not a valid hope for eternity. When we are carried about with the things of this life, we forget for what we were ordained and destined for, that is, the hope of a Christian resurrection into life eternal. “If the spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by His Spirit that dwelleth in you” (Rom. 8:11). |
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