Lent: Keep it Simple

The cost of hope

1 Peter 1:12 “Therefore, with minds that are alert and fully sober, set your hope on the grace to be brought to you when Jesus Christ is revealed at his coming.”

If our future is not secured and satisfied by God then we are going to be excessively anxious. This results either in paralysing fear or in self-managed, greedy control. We end up thinking about ourselves, our future, our problems and our potential, and that keeps us from loving.

In other words, hope is the birthplace of Christian self-sacrificing love. That's because we just let God take care of us and aren't preoccupied with having to work to take care of ourselves. We say, "Lord, I just want to be there for other people tomorrow, because you're going to be there for me."

If we don't have the hope that Christ is for us then we will be engaged in self-preservation and self-enhancement. But if we let ourselves be taken care of by God for the future—whether five minutes or five centuries from now—then we can be free to love others. Then God's glory will shine more clearly, because that's how he becomes visible.

When God satisfies us so deeply that we're free to love other people then he becomes more manifest. And that's what we want above all. Our willingness and desire to be obedient to the teachings of Jesus is at the heart of our entire faith walk.

Charles Wesley puts it so well that our hope in Christ comes with the cost and that cost is faithful obedience.

5 Obedient faith, that waits on thee,

Thou never wilt reprove;

But thou wilt form thy Son in me,

And perfect me in love.