FRUITFUL HOPE August 12, 2020

It seems undeniable that many people these days are restless and on edge, what with many of us not being able to see our loved ones for the past many months, with employment and income lost and even future prospects ever constrained and in danger, with uncertainties of what the future will bring, and the fear that at any moment, the virus will attack and infect us.  No wonder some people I know get irritated with very little noise, fired up over every little inconvenience, and distressed for every bit of the usual but now magnified bad news on local media.

 

Much as the sad news of our collective suffering as humanity is real, efforts by many well-meaning individuals (spiritual ministers and others) to encourage others and even their own selves is also true and sincere.  We may be physically distant, but as one foreign news article has said, we can never survive without each other, hence, we have to resort to any means by which we can encourage and empower one another.

 

For Bible-believing Christians, we have it in the most convenient manner because just opening up the Word of GOD points us to His many promises, encouragements, admonitions, guidance and instructions, wisdom and words of discipline, on how we should properly see things, respond and react in an appropriate manner, and so enable ourselves and the people we come into contact with, not to lose hope, not be moved or swayed in the faith, but remain strong and steadfast in the conviction that our GOD will yet deliver us and provide a way for us no matter the difficulties we face.

 

One such part of Scripture is the Word we read today in the epistle of the Apostle Paul to the Colossians chapter 1.  He and his junior Timothy expressed thankfulness and blessings of peace and grace to the Colossian brethren, for their faith and love to the saints or the rest of the brethren around the world (verses 1 to 4).  Like us today, these brethren may each have their own trials and sufferings during their time, especially against an oppressive empire and government, and yet, they never lost hope in that which Jesus Christ promised to all of us, laid up in heaven (verse 5) are our places in His kingdom.  This hope brought forth fruit in their lives, as it is doing around the world in the lives of other Christians (verse 6).  Even other church ministers, like Epaphras as mentioned here, testified of the brethren’s love in the Spirit (verses 7 and 8).

 

Because of the brethren’s living their faith and hope, the apostle declared of his constant prayer that they and all of us even until this time, be filled with the knowledge of GOD’s will in our lives in all wisdom and spiritual understanding (verse 9), so that the hope we hold on to might bear fruit in our lives, enabling us to do good works (verse 10), be strengthened with all might through patience and long-suffering or endurance with joyfulness (verse 11), and always giving thanks to GOD for our salvation and inheritance in His kingdom (verses 12 to 14).

 

In verses 15 to 22 the apostle laid down in detail why we can depend on this hope and on the faith we have obtained: because the GOD we worship is the One who created all things, He is eternal and timeless, He is the head of the body or the church, the Savior who died and rose from the dead as a kind of firstborn so that all of us might have hope that even in this physical life we die, yet because it is GOD the Father’s pleasure to have all the fullness of power and dominion and authority reside in His Son, Jesus Christ’s death also reconciled us to GOD so that we may share in His glory.

 

In verses 23 to 26 and 28 to 29, the great apostle gave his testimony of his ministerial work, the truth that he preaches which is a mystery to those who do not believe, that though he undergoes suffering for it, yet still continues to fulfill his work because his mission to teach every man in all wisdom, that they might be presented perfect in faith in Christ is greater, and GOD works in Him mightily and strongly.

 

His encouragement should fire us up all the more even these days when the rest of the world says that they cannot see an end in sight, because we have the hope that is eternally alive in our hearts, and one that will forever be preeminent among all creation and authorities, “Christ lives in us”, and this is our hope, our hope that at His coming, we shall be delivered of all our suffering and share in His glory (verse 27).

 

And so we will not give up and give in, we will ground ourselves in this truth, we will settle in this conviction and commitment, and we will not be moved away from the hope of this gospel or good news, which we have heard, we have read, and was preached to us and to all creatures under heaven, because we know and are convinced that such hope will bear fruit in our lives and even beyond it (verse 23) through all time, in a world that in the future will be without end.