Devotion

Job 6:8

 If only my request would be granted.

If only God would grant me what I hope for:  

It's a complicated explanation of hope.  The same word for the cord that Rahab let the men down from the city is the word that Job used when He hoped in the LORD.  

His hope was that God would let shim die.  But God had a greater hope in mind when He restored Job with a new family.  Job is our proof that God does not punish believers.  Sin enters the world but God has delivered us from sin.

Saturday, August 31, 2024

(1 John 3:2b-3) “…we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.”

Purified By Hope

In this life we are constantly hoping for good days for the future. The young may have hopes for a career, marriage, and children. The middle aged may have hopes for advancement and increasing prosperity. The elderly may have hopes for continued good health and time to enjoy the blessings of family.

We know that these common hopes are often not realized; our lives do not always go as we hoped, and we are disappointed. But the hope that John holds before us here will never disappoint those who have it. This is so because this hope rests on Jesus; His death and resurrection are the seal on it that it is real. The fact that in this hope we are clinging to the living Savior ensures it. Therefore it is truly a “blessed hope” (Titus 2:13), a “good hope” (2 Thessalonians 2:16), a “living hope” (1 Peter 1:3).

This hope—unlike all others—has a purifying power. God who has given us this hope by His Spirit also gives us with it the desire for holiness and the power to strive toward it. It is by this hope that God draws us away from sin. We look forward to seeing our Savior as He is and to being like Him in perfect righteousness and true holiness forever. Impure thoughts, words, and deeds are incompatible with this hope. We are appalled when we see them in ourselves and repent of them.

When the apostle says that the believer purifies himself he certainly does not imply that we are to look to ourselves for purification. Rather he is directing his readers to use the divinely-given means for purification that he has already set forth in this epistle: confessing sins rather than hiding and nurturing them (chapter 1:8-10); trusting in the blood of Jesus Christ that cleanses us from all sin (1:7); trusting that we have the exalted Christ as our advocate who intercedes for us with the Father (2:1, 2).

God grant us a daily remembrance of the glorious hope that we have in Christ that we may live in it and rejoice in it.

https://live.bible.is/bible/ENGNIV/LUK/24?audio_type=audio  start at 1:48

Luke 24:13-35

On the Way to Emmaus

13 Now, on that same day, two of them were going to a village named Emmaus, about seven miles[a] from Jerusalem. 14 They were talking with each other about all of these things that had happened. 15 While they were talking and discussing this, Jesus himself approached and began to walk along with them. 16 But their eyes were kept from recognizing him. 17 He said to them, “What are you talking about as you walk along?” Saddened, they stopped.

18 One of them, named Cleopas, answered him, “Are you the only visitor in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?”

19 “What things?” he asked them.

They replied, “The things concerning Jesus of Nazareth, a man who was a prophet, mighty in deed and word before God and all the people. 20 The chief priests and our rulers handed him over to be condemned to death. And they crucified him. 21 But we were hoping that he was going to redeem Israel. Not only that, but besides all this, it is now the third day since these things happened. 22 Also some women of our group amazed us. They were at the tomb early in the morning. 23 When they did not find his body, they came back saying that they had even seen a vision of angels, who said that he was alive. 24 Some of those who were with us went to the tomb. They found it just as the women had said, but they did not see him.”

25 He said to them, “How foolish you are and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! 26 Did not the Christ have to suffer these things and to enter his glory?” 27 Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.

28 As they approached the village where they were going, he acted as if he were going to travel farther. 29 But they urged him strongly, saying, “Stay with us, since it is almost evening, and the day is almost over.”

So he went in to stay with them. 30 When he reclined at the table with them, he took the bread, blessed it, broke it, and began giving it to them. 31 Suddenly their eyes were opened, and they recognized him. Then he vanished from their sight. 32 They said to each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he was speaking to us along the road and while he was explaining the Scriptures to us?” 33 They got up that very hour and returned to Jerusalem. They found the Eleven and those who were with them assembled together. 34 They were saying, “The Lord really has been raised! He has appeared to Simon.” 35 They themselves described what had happened along the road, and how they recognized him when he broke the bread.

Read full chapter

Footnotes

1. Luke 24:13 Sixty stadia; about eleven kilometers

2. suzéteó: to examine together, hence to dispute 

3. ἄφαντος became invisible.not ἀπῆλθεν departed

4.  ἐλπίζω  = hope to hope, actively waiting for God's fulfillment about the faith He has inbirted through the power of His love  

Questions.

What the disciples hoped for was earthly, but what God gives is much better.  What could be better than eternal life.

Notes: