ODJ: Hope That Will Not Die

November 27, 2018 

READ: 1 Peter 1:3-9 

The reward for trusting [God] will be the salvation of your souls (v.9).

When I was a boy, we’d often visit friends for meals overflowing with delicious country cooking: fried chicken, mashed potatoes, meatloaf and green beans simmering in bacon grease. There was a moment of pure anticipation, however, when the plates were cleared and someone would say, “Save your fork.” Those magical words could only mean one glorious thing: Dessert’s coming.

Jesus’ resurrection also revealed that more was coming. In it, God enacted the first action of a new story. Through the resurrection, He announced His promise to do for His people what He had already done for His Son. It proclaimed the certain hope of so much more to come.

Peter puts it this way: “It is by [God’s] great mercy that we have been born again, because God raised Jesus Christ from the dead. Now we live with great expectation, and we have a priceless inheritance—an inheritance that is kept in heaven for you, pure and undefiled, beyond the reach of change and decay” (1 Peter 1:3-4). God has birthed us into a new life, a new possibility. He’s given us a “living hope” precisely because in the resurrection Jesus conquered death (v.3 niv). And the life, the hope, God gives can never be taken from us.

We can rest assured that the resurrection is more than a story of what God did for Jesus. It’s also the story of what He will do for the whole world. While God has already given us salvation, the final deliverance is still coming. This promise will not perish or spoil or fade. No power can strip this hope from us.

And until that day, “God is protecting you by his power” (v.5). In Jesus, your future is secure. Your life is in God’s strong, loving hands.

—Winn Collier

365-day plan: 2 Corinthians 4:1-18