Good Hope
When a person is loved, they are given things of special significance.
When a man loves a woman and wishes to take her as his wife, he bestows on her a ring of great value to declare his love and to indicate his good intentions of dedicating his life to her until she comes to the end of her life or he comes to the end of his own.
Most people I know enjoy birthdays because they expect that family and friends who love them will bless them somehow on that special day.
We all find special ways to bless those we love throughout the year just because we love them. This practice helps the ones we love to feel they have a good hope of always being loved.
When you think of these things that are so practical in our everyday lives for a moment and then read what it says in,
2Thessalonians 2:16 Now may our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, and our God and Father, who has loved us and given us everlasting consolation and good hope by grace, 17 comfort your hearts and establish you in every good word and work.
How does this convey that we have been given everlasting consolation and good hope?
By grace! It is by the favor God has freely given us because of Jesus Christ.
Everlasting consolation and good hope are meant to produce something in our lives too.
It is meant to comfort our hearts and establish us in every good word and work. In other words, experiencing everlasting consolation and good hope by grace is transformative because it is administered by God the Father and Christ the Son to our hearts, and when they are at work in us, it is life-altering.
This is why it is impossible that we can remain the same if we are actively interacting with God in the relationship Jesus made possible through shedding His blood on the cross to free us from sin’s penalty and bring us into favor with the Father.
The righteousness of God we have been given is not merely a positional reality or idealistic notion. It is a powerful force that works in us, bringing us again and again into conformity to Jesus when we actively utilize the privileges it grants us.
Jesus went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil. It stands to reason that the more we increase in Him, we, too, will be characterized as someone who speaks good words and has good works.
Be encouraged in the Father’s love and the love of Jesus Christ today! Let their everlasting consolation and good hope well in you by grace, comfort your heart, and establish you in every good word and work. You have been richly blessed in Christ!
