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The Ephesian Connection
I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints.
When God called us to Himself, He did so with an eternal hope and expectation. Our sinful condition did not deter Him. In fact, it never crossed His mind that He might be involved in a futile effort. Obviously, His hope is not like man’s; it is based on an eternal perspective. In contrast, our best hope apart from God is based on uncertainty. “Well, I hope everything turns out all right.” When God considers the Church in its present condition, He can speak of the future with confidence because He has seen the finished product. In fact, He comes to us in our time constrained world and ministers to us from His perspective of seeing the end from the beginning (Isaiah 46:9 - 10). And He pours His Spirit into our hearts that we might access His eternal perspective. In other words, we can learn to see as he sees. Our thoughts are to reflect the viewpoint of Heaven.
Hope denotes a perspective bound by time. When we hope for something, it is because we cannot see it yet. And our expectation is that it will be realized in the future.
For in hope we have been saved, but hope that is seen is not hope; for why does one also hope for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, with perseverance we wait eagerly for it.
Hope concerns the future. So, if God has already seen the future, how is it that He would have hope? Why would He even need it?
One reason He identifies with hope is because we need it, and all our needs are met in Him. God knows that our view is limited. And unless He comes and imparts hope to us, we can only face the future with uncertainty or even fear. From the very beginning, God committed Himself to relate intimately with us. In order to experience not only our need for hope, but all of our needs, He who is limitless stepped down into the boundaries of our existence and tasted limitation. The Incarnation was God put into human terms; it placed Jesus within our constraints. Since He experienced our weaknesses and limitations, He can now minister to us with true understanding and compassion as our High Priest.
Therefore, He had to be made like His brethren in all things, that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For since He Himself was tempted in that which He has suffered, He is able to come to the aid of those who are tempted.
The Lord clearly understands every temptation we face in the areas of doubt, fear, depression, or hopelessness because He was made like us. Therefore, He is able to pray and intercede on our behalf with insightful effectiveness. He does not just sit in heaven and tell us to “pull ourselves up by our bootstraps” and try harder. Instead He comes to us by His Spirit, ministering to us according to our need. If our problem is a lack of hope, He encourages us out of His own nature. It is not that He only gives us hope; He is our hope.
Christ in you, the hope of glory.
Here is a mystery. Hope relates to what is not yet seen, and yet God who sees all is a God of hope. How precious it is that He is able to minister to us so effectively, meeting us in our limitations. He experiences the circumstances of our lives and identifies with us in them.
For example, God is patient. But how can He be patient if He already knows how everything is going to turn out? Out of His foreknowledge He has seen how His purpose will succeed, how long it will take, and all the ingredients necessary to accomplish it. From His eternal perspective it is already finished. So, He reigns with confidence and peace because of His eternal viewpoint. Where then is the need for patience? Again, we discover a mystery and also a great joy to all who believe. God not only knows where we are going; He is going with us. He is not just sitting at the end of the road waiting for us to arrive; He is journeying on the road with us. Jesus is not only the goal of our faith; He is the way. God has joined us on the journey. As a result, He can minister patience to our hearts as He also looks expectantly forward to the future along with us.
Another mystery involves sin and righteousness. When we sin, He does not casually view it from afar, unaffected by our wrongdoing because He knew we would stumble before the fact. He is pained by our sin; He grieves over us. But again, how can God who foresaw it be so affected when we sin? Did He not see it from eternity? Has He not already seen every sin we will yet commit? Does He not hold tomorrow as well as the past in His hands? Indeed, He does. But God has stepped into vulnerability so that He can be both blessed and grieved by us. We would not have a genuine intimate relationship with Him if this were not so. He would just be like a great computer in the sky to which we could type a little prayer and receive some forgiveness whenever we needed it. But since He has chosen to participate with us in our walk and since we have a two-way relationship with Him, our thoughts and actions greatly affect Him. How amazing – the eternal yet vulnerable God.
Hope is part of His character. He not only sees the future from eternity, He also looks toward the future from the present together with His people. Here is where hope comes in. Today He looks expectantly to the days and years lying ahead of the Church. He is not sitting back with only an eternal perspective, indifferent about what awaits His bride. Rather, He joyfully anticipates what is on the horizon. She will be without spot, wrinkle, or blemish (Ephesians 5:27). As He considers her beauty (in spite of the amount of work yet to be done in her), hope fills His heart.
When the Scripture speaks of the hope of His calling, it is referring to the hope in God’s heart which He then gave to us when He called us to Himself. When we were called, we did not have any. We were devoid of hope and without Him in the world (Ephesians 2:12). But when He touched our lives, He came with a plan for the future. He had something in mind, personally tailored and designed for each one of us. So, what is the hope of His calling? What does He desire to establish in us and then minister through us in the years ahead? What has He seen from eternity that He longs to see realized in our lives? The answers will be different for each of us. We do not all have the same ministry, the same spiritual gifts, the same place of function in His Church, or the same degree of visibility before others. But we do all have the same destination.
…we exult in hope of the glory of God.
We have tasted a measure of His glory and our appetites have been awakened. We have partaken of something from eternity and we will never be the same again. Having touched the reality of God and having experienced Him for ourselves, we can never be satisfied with anything less than Him personally. Our desire is for more of Him. He is our destination.
What is the guarantee that we shall possess our inheritance, that we shall lay hold of the fullness of His glory?
Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.
Faith is the certainty within us that we will receive what we expectantly wait for. Faith has come to us by the word of God, and thus we are assured of the glory of God. And we exult in hope to see it realized in us.
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