Our Enduring Hope In Christ

April 6, 2017

Our Enduring Hope In Christ

Rise up! Help us!

Ransom us because of your unfailing love.

Psalm 44:26

There are three distinct characteristics of life revealed in the Bible. There is the life of tangible blessings brought through faithfulness and obedience to God; there is the life of faith where we are called to remain true to God in the face of distress (i.e., the life of Job); and there is the life of hope, where even though evil seems to have the upper hand, we trust in God’s ultimate victory. (The Book of Revelation is an example of a call to hope in the face of persecution.)

Psalm 44 is our model when we encounter times of great distress in our lives. We do not know for sure the exact circumstances that led the King of Israel to write this poem. What we can see within the psalm is that the King believed Israel was faithful, and as God’s favor had been with Israel in the past, he expected God’s favor when he led Israel into battle. The King was wrong, and Israel suffered a humiliating defeat. Even so, as was Job’s, so also was the King’s hope in God: “Rise up! Help us! Ransom us because of your unfailing love” (Psalm 44:26).

Why didn’t Israel receive God’s favor? The most likely reason is that the King had ventured off on his own initiative and not through the Lord’s leading; or, perhaps, Israel was not as faithful as the King presumed. Our lives, and the lives of our churches, are impacted by the sins of others; or, perhaps this was an occasion when evil appears to be winning.

Psalm 44 teaches us that when we face adversity in our life, we can honestly express our emotions to God. God can handle our grief. We will face such times, as the Apostle Paul in quoting Psalm 44, assured us. Even so, Paul points us to our enduring hope in Christ.

“Can anything ever separate us from Christ’s love? Does it mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, or hungry, or destitute, or in danger, or threatened with death? As the Scriptures say, “For your sake we are killed every day; we are being slaughtered like sheep.” No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us.”

Romans 8:35-36

Sē’lah

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(Selah is a word that appears in the Book of Psalms that I often use as the Complimentary Closing in my correspondence. Its meaning, as I use the word, is to pause and think about these things.)

These meditations are written by Alex M. Knight as he seeks the life in Christ as his way of life.  The meditations are published on the BLOG, http://seekingthelifeinchrist.blogspot.com/ and they are also distributed on the Constant Contact email server. You may subscribe to this email service by sending an email to: amkrom812@gmail.com. The BLOG is also available on Amazon Kindle, by subscription.

Publications by Alex M. Knight:

·        Seeking the Life in Christ, Meditations on the New Testament and Psalms has been published and is now available at Amazon.com in paperback and Kindle.

·        The second edition of  First Think – Then Pray is available on Amazon Kindle.

·        Meditations on The Story of My Life as told by Jesus Christ has been released as an e-book on Amazon Kindle.

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.