Called To Hope

 Ephesians 1:15-18


15 Therefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, 16 do not cease to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers: 17 that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, 18 the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints,


Hope.  What do you think of when you hear that word?  Many think of the future and what future events may hold.  To a lot of us it has a sense of things to come.  While hope can certainly attain to that, we should also remember that hope is very much a present thing as well.


Here is Paul’s letter to the church at Ephesus, Paul mentions his prayers that he gives towards the church.  He mentions how he heard of their faith and the love they have for the followers of Jesus.  He states that one thing that he asks of God is that they may know the hope of His calling.


Do you know what the hope of His calling is?


Here Paul is talking about our salvation.  Our call to salvation which we followed by surrendering to our Lord Jesus Christ.  With salvation comes hope.


What do we have to hope for?


Salvation gives us the hope of heaven.  That one day we will be in the perfect paradise of God where there will be no more pain, no more heartache, no more sin.  That we will be in absolute perfection and will be able to worship Him for eternity.


We have the hope of His promises.  God promises us that He will always take care of His children.  That He will answer our prayers.  That He will provide for our needs.  That He will send the Holy Spirit into our lives to lead us and guide us.  He promises us that He will seal us forever unto the day of redemption so we will never lose our salvation.


We have the hope that the enemy cannot defeat us.  The enemy may win a battle or two from time to time, but God is with us and we will win the war.  The enemy has no claim on us.  He cannot snatch you away from God.  The best the enemy can hope for at this point is to try to make your life as ineffective as possible.  However, we have the hope that God is with us and won’t forsake us.   That God will speak for us and that He will never allow us to enter into temptation that we cannot rise from.


We have hope for a glorious future in Christ.  


Jeremiah 29:11

11 For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.


This is what makes Christianity so special from other belief systems.  We have assurance.  We have confidence.  We have hope.  We know that if we confess our sins that He is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins.  It’s not a matter of hoping that He will.  We know that he will.  Due to that knowledge, we have hope for the future.  We have a glorious hope, awaiting for His return.


Psalm 62:5 (HCSB)

Rest in God alone, my soul,

for my hope comes from Him.


We are called to hope because our hope comes directly from the Lord.  The world sees our hope and sees that we as the children of God have something that they want.


We live in a world today that really has no real signs of hope from a lot of people.  When we turn on the news and look at social media, a large part of it is doom and gloom.  There really isn’t a lot of hope, just  a lot of despair.


The statistics concerning suicide is alarming enough for us to realize this and sadly enough that statistics is high even among those that call themselves believers.  


Why is that?  It is due to our lack of faith and holding onto God’s promises.  That is why it is so vital to live a life in prayer and in Bible study.  Each and every day we should be opening the Word of God and hearing what God has to say to us.  It’s a message of hope!  The Bible is not full of doom and gloom.  The Bible is full of God’s stories and His promises telling us that we have a blessed hope in Him and that He is coming back for His children.


The Bible promises us that He is coming back to make all things new.  The Bible gives us hope and because of that we should spread that hope with others.


We should be spreading the good news of Jesus Christ and His message of salvation to others because it brings hope.  Christ died for our sins on the cross because He loved us and wants us to have an eternal relationship with Him.  He wants us to have an abundant life and not experience a life full of sin and turmoil which only leads to destruction.  He wants to see the best in our lives and He wants us to know that we have the hope that He is coming back for us.


Do you have hope?  Can someone say that you are a hopeful person?  


Do you have the hope of His coming?  Remember this verse today and say it from time to time because as a child of God, we have a lot of things to look forward too.


Titus 2:13

13 while we wait for the blessed hope and appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ.

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