May 23

A lively hope. 1 Peter 1:3.

THE “hope laid up for us in heaven” has entirely and only to do with life. All life is valuable, but there is a life which deserves the name-a life of justification, a life of sanctification, the life of God in the soul of man, the life everlasting. This hope has only to do with this life. It is a hope full of immortality. The Apostle here means that it is durable and growing. Other hopes die. We have buried many of our hopes already, and others are dropping off like leaves in autumn. But this hope can never decline, never diminish: it will not grow dim with the eye, nor dull with the ear of the body; but as the “outward man perishes, the inward man will be renewed day by day.”

Time is necessarily killing every other hope. Every day, every hour, takes something from our worldly possessions and enjoyments, and brings us nearer to the end of them; but the very reverse of this is the case with the Christian’s hope. Every day, every hour, instead of diminishing, increases it; brings us nearer to its fruition and perfection for ever. He means to tell us, that in this “lively hope” there is an efficiency. This hope can never be found in the soul inoperative. All real hope indeed is active and lively, according to its degree. Let us look at the energy of a Christian’s hope in trials; it is “an anchor of the soul, sure and stedfast:” holding us secure in the raging and buffeting of the sea and storm.

“A hope so much divine

May trials well endure.”

Let us view the vigour of this hope in worldly temptations. Moses not only endured the menaces of Pharaoh because he saw “Him who was invisible,” but “when he was come to years he refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter; choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt: for he had respect to the recompense of the reward.”

It is thus by faith the Christian overcomes the world. He can only be weaned from earth by finding and realizing something better. When the soul is satisfied with the goodness, and filled with the blessing of the Lord, the world allures in vain. See the vigour of this hope in duty. When is a Christian so active as when he feels “the joy of God’s salvation,” and can “rejoice in hope?” How this drives off dullness, and indifference, and sloth, and even drowsiness in religious concerns! How the Christian “worships God in the Spirit,” and is “fervent in Spirit, serving the Lord.” For the “joy of the Lord is our strength.” See the vigour of this hope in the Christian’s sanctification and holiness. He that “hath this hope purifieth himself even as he is pure,” as to measure, and degree, and quality; for the believer, “beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, is changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.”