Looking for that blessed hope...the Wayfarer

1 year, 7 months ago

Looking for that blessed hope

 

 

^{(Titus 2:15)}

 

¹¹ For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men,

 

¹² Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world;

 

¹³ Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ;

 

¹⁴ Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.

 

¹⁵ These things speak, and exhort, and rebuke with all authority. Let no man despise thee.

 

 

Looking for that blessed hope! That hope, and the certainty of its attainment are central to the belief of Christianity, and has been central to it from the beginning when first preached by the apostles, and from the first church at Antioch to any church today that would be a part of the Body of Christ, the ONE TRUE Church.

 

All teaching, all preaching, all attempts to meet the requirement of the Great Commission given us by Jesus, must convey the absolute and complete faith, both in that hope that is promised through him, and faith that that faith is not in vain and only a means to provide a philanthropical philosophy of use only on this putrid ball of mud that is the stopover to a destination in eternity.

 

That hope, spoken of so eloquently in this epistle is not within the hope provided by good works or any righteousness of any one man or men, living or dead, but lies entirely in the righteousness of a living Savior, crucified, buried, and resurrected and ascended to provide that hope.

 

 

Ephesians 2:8-10King James Version (KJV)

 

⁸ For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:

 

⁹ Not of works, lest any man should boast.

 

¹⁰ For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.

 

 

That grace, given through faith, is given only by God, and cannot be given by any man.

 

That faith must be in the grace shown by God through the Sacrifice of his son, and the atonement available, received only through that sacrifice, and the complete belief in that Son.

 

The first step in that belief is the comprehension that there is a God, that Jesus IS His Son, and that mankind is a creature that continually displeases and ignores all asked of him by both.

 

 

(Romans 3:20-26)

 

 

²⁰ Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.

 

²¹ But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets;

 

²² Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference:

 

²³ For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;

 

²⁴ Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus:

 

²⁵ Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God;

 

²⁶ To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.

 

 

When Paul wrote that word, “ALL”, it meant and still means ALL!

 

It meant it in the 23d verse of the passage just quoted, and it meant it in the 11^th,,14^th, and 15^th, verses from Titus as well.

 

 

The free justification spoken of by Paul, again comes only through the redemption that is in CHRIST JESUS, not any man or that man’s works or that man’s inadequate love.

 

I love my children, my grandchildren, my wife, my mother, my family, my friends, and would willingly sacrifice life and limb or anything within my capability for them, with the exception of my faith.

 

That love extends beyond that small group mentioned to become all inclusive with the care and concern held for ALL men because of a sincere desire that that blessed hope, and my certainty of its attainment be given to all.

 

My love is not adequate to assure this! My love will not procure a place in the kingdom that is that hope for any of them.

 

My faith will not procure that place for them.

 

The only ONE that may procure that place is CHRIST JESUS and the only faith that assures that place is that of the individual holding that hope, and with it that certainty that is given through having met the first requirement of attaining that hope.

 

My love for my fellow man, and his needs in this life are a necessity, and it is a sincere love that is not only extant, but is freely given in hope that that love lead to a greater love than that which I am capable of giving.

 

My love must also, and does also require that I make known that greater love, and the means of its attainment, even though it is so readily and summarily rejected as being something other than that love.

 

My silence about THAT LOVE  would be a denial of it, given to none by me, and received from none from the ONE that gives it.

 

It is THAT Love that I preach, teach and exhort for all.

 

Not my own, but that of Christ Jesus.

 

It is HIS righteousness, His Sacrifice, the atonement and redemption through Him that counts far more than any temporal concerns that would preclude the gift of that Love that must be spoken and understood, before any may attain that blessed hope.

 

Christ preached a simple message from the time he was baptized and began his ministry, to the time He gave John the Revelation of the prophecy of the appearance of that blessed hope.

 

I pray that all hear that message and heed it.

 

Amen and amen
the Wayfarer