April 27, 2025
Daily Devotion:
"Embracing The Promise of What Yet Is to Come"
Romans 8:24-25
New Living Translation
24 We were given this hope when we were saved. (If we already have something, we don’t need to hope[a] for it. 25 But if we look forward to something we don’t yet have, we must wait patiently and confidently.)
Erroneously, hope is viewed as the wishful thinking for something good to happen in the future, however hope that concerns the future is not passive or wishful thinking. A closeexamination of our lives indicates that we live in anticipation and hopeful expectation that our efforts of labor in planting and sowing, studying and dedication, devotion and commitment will at some point yield an outcome we havedetermined. All those enterprises require active engagements for the yielding of that which is yet to be realized. It is comforting to know that our hope is established by divine providence of God. It is built on the ordinances,precepts and the work of salvation that God has established. We gain confidence about the future because it is based on God’s promises and revelation. It is what God has already determined that we hope and expect. It is firmly established and cannot be supplanted by any other, except our own unbelief and disobedience. Having faith in what God has done makes living in this world less burdensome.
Sometimes when we look around at the vacillating system of the world, the infidelity of human nature and our relationship to one another, it brings on an anguish of spirit.
However, we are encouraged by the prophet in Lamentations 3:21-24, “This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope. It is of the LORD'S mercies that we are not consumed, because hiscompassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness. The LORD is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him.” Our trust and hope must not be in other human beings or in material possessions or money,(Psalm 146: 3&5). Rather, our hope must be in God, His Word and His mercy. Let us not be like the foolish builder who went and built on sand and when the storm blew there was a great fall. Anything outside of Jesus Christ and His Word is sand.
There is a storm coming that will try what our hope is based on and will try every man’s work (1 Cor. 3:13). Let our prayers be about our hope in God and His Word, hope in His mercy and hope in His compassion. Anything else is not a solid foundation.
