2 Timothy 3:1 says, “This know also, that in the last
days perilous times shall come.” Those
perilous times are escalating at an alarming rate. Is there hope of making it through? Is there hope in the darkness that envelops
us? Of course there is. Our Hope is Jesus.
Hope is simply defined as the confident expectation of
good. Hope that is sure and steadfast
must be based on something or someone established, solid and secure, or our
hope is in vain. What is the basis of
your hope today?
Most people hope for specific things, but in general
categories such as a dream to come to pass, a prosperous life, a promising
future or for certain relationships to develop.
The foundation of their hope may be based on their ability to develop the
right connections, hard work, being part of a wealthy family or manipulating
conditions to make them favorable for their desired outcome. But those foundations are only temporary at
best and are vulnerable to the shifting of outward circumstances. If we want a firm foundation that is
unchanging and immoveable, we can place our hope in Jesus Christ.
Jesus is the hope that keeps our souls anchored securely no
matter what comes our way. He is the “hope we have as an anchor of the soul,
both sure and stedfast” (Hebrews 5:19) Our hope in Him surpasses
anything our reasoning or emotions may tell us.
During one of those times when I felt everything was
falling apart (because I was listening to the message from my reasoning and
emotions), the following hymn kept playing through my mind. I looked it up and found the words to be
stabilizing and comforting because they pointed to Jesus. The hymn is “The Solid Rock.”
It begins like this:
“My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus blood and righteousness. I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but
wholly lean on Jesus name.” When we
choose to base our hope on something less than Jesus, we set ourselves up for a
fall. Any other hope is inferior. Only through Jesus’ blood can we be cleansed
from our sins and reconciled to God. The
sacrifice Jesus made sealed our redemption.
We can overcome the enemy (Satan and every evil spirit) by the blood of
the Lamb, and the word of our testimony.
(Revelation 12:11) If we trust in
another way, we will be disappointed in the end. We need to make up our minds and establish
our hearts to have Jesus and Him alone as the basis of our hope.
Verse 2: “When
darkness veils His lovely face, I rest on His unchanging grace. In every high and stormy gale, my anchor
holds within the veil.” It is easy to
rest in Him when we feel His presence and His light is shining brightly on our
paths. However times will come when it
seems He isn’t there and the light on our path is small, showing us only the
step we are on. It is then we must
remind ourselves of His unchanging grace and be assured His Word is true. When
darkness sets in on us and we cannot sense His presence or hear His voice, we
can rest in the fact that He is
there. When the storms overwhelm us, we
can be assured by His Word that our roots are still firmly planted in Him – the
One Who seemingly has a veil between us and Him. Although we feel we are outside the veil, our
roots are still within the veil. Our
strength still has the same Source.
Reading the Bible during those times will reassure us of our place in
Him and His place in us.
Verse 3: “His
oath, His covenant, His blood, support me in the whelming flood. When all around my soul gives way, He then is
all my hope and stay.” What God said He
will do, He will do. He never breaks covenant. The covenant He made with us was with the
blood of His own Son. So, when the enemy
comes in like a flood, the Lord will raise up the banner that claims us as His
territory and represents the power and authority of our God. (See Isaiah 59:19.) He draws a line around us
that the enemy cannot cross. If our souls (our mind, our will and our emotions)
are being battered by spiritual warfare against us, we can remember God’s
covenant with us and know He will come to our rescue.
Verse 4: “When He
shall come with trumpet sound, O may I then in Him be found; Dressed in His
righteousness alone, faultless to stand before the throne.” This is our ultimate goal. But it doesn’t just automatically come to
pass. If we want to be faultless when we
stand before the throne, we need to live on this earth in such a way that it
will be natural for our next step to cross the boundary between earth and heaven
to meet Him when the trumpet sounds. Then
we will be unencumbered by the pull of the world, the flesh and the devil. If we are not walking according to the
leadership of the Holy Spirit and His Word in the earth, neither will we walk
with Him in heaven. We can do that only
by losing our lives in this world to gain them in the Spirit. Those who choose Jesus above every earthly
charm have that blessed hope of salvation and eternal life. “Whosoever” comes to Jesus will stand
faultless before His throne. The word
‘come’ means to move from ‘here’ to ‘there’ – from the natural to the spiritual
realm.
Are you facing temptations, confusion, storms or
disappointments? Stand firmly on Christ,
the Solid Rock. How do we stand on
Him? Learn the teachings of Jesus, cling
to them and live by them. His Word will
stand when the whole earth crumbles, because Jesus is the Word.
Jesus said, “Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I
will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock: And the rain
descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house;
and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock. And every one that heareth these sayings of
mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his
house upon the sand: And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds
blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it.”
Although this is a well known passage of Scripture, it is
not widely obeyed. We read it and we
like to envision ourselves as the wise person who chose to have the right
foundation, but few actually build their lives on the foundation of Jesus
teachings. Do we even know His
teachings? Many of them are difficult
and go against the grain of our ‘American Dream’ mentality. We all want to believe the promises of God,
but few want to base their lives on His teachings.
If we want to
keep from sinking into the flood of evil around us, we must not only hear Jesus’
teachings, but put them into practice in our lives on a daily basis – the easy teachings
and the difficult ones. If you go
through your Bible and read the words Jesus spoke while He was on this earth,
you will be amazed how many of those teachings we are not following. Go back, take a fresh look, and don’t allow
his words to become twisted in your mind to conform to the viewpoint of our
culture. Jesus’ teachings are God’s words
to us individually. They were true when
Jesus spoke them 2000 years ago, and they are just as true for you and me
today. Let’s make it our determination
to build on the Solid Rock.
Jesus is the solid Rock. Building our lives on this Rock ensures that
we are daily in His presence, His protection, His guidance, His wisdom, His
provision, and everything else we need.
It doesn’t guarantee we can have everything we want, but He gives us all
we need and more.
“On Christ, the
solid Rock, I stand.
All other ground
is sinking sand.
All other ground
is sinking sand.”
ONE MORE THOUGHT:
Moses
asked to see God’s glory, but God told him no flesh could see His face and
live. However, God said He would reveal
Himself in part. “And the Lord said, Behold, there is a
place beside Me, and you shall stand
upon the rock, And while My glory passes by, I will put you in a cleft of the rock and cover you with My hand
until I have passed by. Then I will take
away My hand and you shall see My back; but My face shall not be seen.” (Exodus
33:21-23)
Jesus Christ is that Rock. When we stand on Him, we can see the manifest
presence of God; not in the fullness with which we will see Him in heaven, but
we can stand in His presence even in the earth.
Unless we build our lives on Jesus, we will never see the glory
of God.
When Jesus
died on the cross, the veil in the Temple was torn from top to bottom, opening
the Holy of holies, the place of God’s presence, to those who would receive
cleansing through Jesus’ blood. Only
through His sacrifice can we enter into the presence of God beyond the veil.
“[Now] we have this [hope] as a sure and steadfast anchor
of the soul [it cannot slip and it cannot break down under whoever steps out
upon it—a hope] that reaches farther and enters into [the very certainty
of the Presence] within the veil.”
Hebrews 6:19 (Amplified)
Have you asked to see God’s glory? Stand upon the Rock.
