PUTTING HOPE WHERE IT BELONGS

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment.

1 Timothy 6:17

This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

We all need hope. It’s as essential as love and feeling valued in life.

So with this truth in place, a quick question:

Where do you put your hope?

Certainly, there are a lot of options and this is why you might find a variety of responses to the source of hope question. Ultimately, it comes down to the heart and what it treasures most. We know this because Jesus said this in His Sermon on the Mount:

“Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Matthew 6:21

The idea here is that people will put there hope in whatever they treasure and you can identify that treasure by looking in the heart.

Now, none of us can look inside another person’s heart but the Lord can and this leads to a second question:

When the Lord looks in your heart, where would He see your hope abiding? Would He find it in Him or someone or something else?

Of course, any hope outside of God is a misplaced hope, a hope put in something that will not sustain for eternity. For no person or material possession is going to remain with someone forever. There will be a time where death happens, as it will for every living being, and when that happens, life here on earth ends.

Going back to the Sermon on the Mount, this is why Jesus had this to say about placing hope (storing up treasures) in the wrong things:

“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. v.19

Treasures on earth don’t last. They are unsustainable. And if our hope is placed in these treasures, our hope won’t last either. It is sure to be eventually dashed one way or another.

As we look at today’s verse from the closing verses of 1 Timothy, chapter 6, we find the Apostle Paul sending a warning for Timothy, the pastor of the Ephesian church, to share with his congregants, some of which were obviously affluent. He writes:

Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. v.17

In other words, Paul is encouraging those who were rich to not place “their hope in wealth” which “is so uncertain”. He followed the lead of Jesus in imploring them to not place their trust in treasures stored up on earth, treasures that were fleeting.

In other words, they were to refrain from placing their hope in places it didn’t belong and we need to heed this caution as well. For too many people place their hope in their possessions or in people they have relationship with only to find that hope dashed when they lose the very thing they have anchored their heart to.

The word of the Lord is clear in today’s scripture verse. The only proper placed to out our hope is in God and in Him alone, the One who “richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment.” We are to place our full trust in the Creator rather than created things.

Go back to your answer to the question:

Where do you put your hope?

My prayer is that your full hope is in God, the One who longs for you to be as fully invested in Him as He is fully invested in You.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it. Send any prayer requests to TheChristianWalkPrayers@gmail.com.