Colossians 1:4-5
For we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and your love for all of God’s people, which come from your confident hope of what God has reserved for you in heaven. You have had this expectation ever since you first heard the truth of the Good News.
Faith in Christ Jesus and Love for God’s people come from the confident hope of God’s planned future for you.
What a revelation!
All my doubts about Jesus and His love, and all my indifference or bad behavior towards people can be solved by confident hope.
Because my conviction of my future determines my present experience.
Why does your hope determine your present experience? Because human beings always orient themselves in the world based on what they see coming ahead.
If you think there will be famine in the distant future, and you think that you are able to gather food and save money soon, guess what you will begin to do?
Gather food and save money.
If you think that every relationship ends in betrayal or disappointment, guess what you will do?
Hide from the people around you and hedge your bets.
If you think that your parenting, your talents, or your body isn’t good enough to bring about a better future, you know what you do.
You stop giving it your all, or you may quit all together.
If you expect full compensation and lavish reward for your work, what do you do?
You are incentivized to work hard, learn more, and sacrifice.
We are hardwired to act as though our current actions will affect our future situation.
How do we obtain a confident hope?
1. Challenge your pride.
It is prideful to assume (without searching and humble, reasonable effort) that you know how everything will turn out and judge your current efforts to be useless.
How do you know what your future could be if you changed today?
2. Challenge your expectations.
Expectations were never meant to be like solidified concrete. They are changeable.
If God has been honest with you so far, why not trust what He says about your future?
You can change your expectations.
3. Challenge your confidence muscle.
Confidence weakens when not used.
Practice confidence in God’s future by speaking His promises out loud.
Practice confidence in God’s future by acting today in a way that is more likely to make that future a reality.
Even if you don’t feel confident now, act as though you are for a good while and see if your feelings change.
4. Challenge your mind.
If your lack of confidence is coming from an intellectual conflict, don’t run from it!
Run towards it by admitting your unbelief, your scruple, or your confusion to yourself and then to others who won’t crush you for doubting.
Welcome arguments or encouragements from others that push you towards hope in God.
If in the end, you cannot believe God, then admit it and step off the “believer wagon”.
Honesty and Authenticity will always be better for you than hypocrisy.
If in the end, you sense that God is there and is calling you, then admit it and determine to follow His voice wherever He leads no matter if your mind can’t understand the path.
Without confident hope in God’s reward for you in heaven, believing in Jesus for salvation will seem empty.
Loving others will lose its attraction when times get tough and people are unlovable.
Only confident hope in the goodness of God’s plans for you in eternity can give you a purpose inspiring enough to truly love Jesus and love others.
What do you expect after your death?
How can you build your hope today?
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