July 5, 2011 … Hope of Glory

Passage of the Day: Romans 5: 1 – 5 … 1 Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. 3 Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4 perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5 And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.

My Journal for Today: Now that I’ve been looking at the first few verses of Romans 5 in the past few days of devotionals, one can’t help but note how deep with meaning, power, and truth is there for the believer to KNOW that salvation is available for all who believe and receive Christ’s hope of glory. And Romans 8: 29 – 30 [see below] also tells us that this hope WAS seared into eternity by God in His redemptive plan before time, as we know it, began. And that plan is that all who believe in Christ WILL BE glorified eternally just as Christ is NOW, even as He intercedes for believers in Heaven with the Father. Hence, our hope of glory is PAST, PRESENT, and FUTURE.

SCRIPTURE: Romans 8: 29 – 30 … 29 For those God foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. 30 And those He predestined, He also called; those He called, He also justified; those He justified, He also glorified.

Do you see it! God’s redemptive plan for believers is eternal (and that’s you and me if we’re born again!); and having been secured by the peace Christ made with His Father on the cross, anyone who has faith in that finished work can have the hope of glory NOW, … a hope that can never be taken away. … Stay with me here! There is nothing more important in the consciousness of the believer. You have just read the lynchpin of our salvation; and once it is driven into eternity by our faith in Christ, God’s promise assures it will be there forever. If that is not the case, then the term (below), “ETERNAL,” in probably the most quoted verse in the New Testament [John 3: 16], is meaningless.

SCRIPTURE: John 3: 16 … For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have ETERNAL life.

If we can lose our salvation after receiving it, then that salvation is not ETERNAL, is it? It would be TEMPORAL; and John 3: 16 becomes a lie; and no one could ever have the hope of salvation at any point in time because of the reality of Rom. 3: 23 … that we are all sinners and fall short of the glory of God. It also makes Jesus a liar from the cross when He declared “It is finished!” Because if any believer could lose his salvation at any point after gaining it, Christ’s work on the cross was not finished and therefore His death and resurrection were trivial and incomplete.

Dear one … Jesus’ work on the cross sealed my salvation (and yours, if Jesus is your Lord and Savior) for ETERNITY!. It’s a done deal. I have been saved yesterday … I am saved today … and I am saved for eternity to come.

And all I can say to that is … HALLELUJAH!!!

Beloved, can you see it? Because if you do, you are going to KNOW that you know that you know that you are saved! And I pray that all who are reading this, as the one who is writing it, … that we all have secured that hope of glory which Christ has for all who have believed and received Him.

And I pray that we all walk confidently in that hope and assurance. Stayed tuned, fellow Christian, there’s more to come!

My Prayer Today: You are my hope of glory, Lord! Amen