{"id":26225,"date":"2015-06-10T00:20:54","date_gmt":"2015-06-10T04:20:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/?p=26225"},"modified":"2015-06-10T10:24:57","modified_gmt":"2015-06-10T14:24:57","slug":"living-hope-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/2015\/06\/10\/living-hope-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Living Hope"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/SeekingHimLogo.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-13840\" src=\"http:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/SeekingHimLogo.jpg\" alt=\"SeekingHimLogo\" width=\"560\" height=\"280\" srcset=\"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/SeekingHimLogo.jpg 560w, https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/SeekingHimLogo-300x150.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 560px) 100vw, 560px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"color: #008080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS', sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Praised (honored, blessed) be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ (the Messiah)! \u00a0By His boundless mercy we have been born again to an ever-living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, \u00a0<\/span><span style=\"color: #008080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS', sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">[Born anew] into an inheritance which is beyond the reach of change and decay [imperishable], unsullied and unfading, reserved in heaven for you, \u00a0w<\/span><span style=\"color: #008080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS', sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">ho are being guarded (garrisoned) by God\u2019s power through [your] faith [till you fully inherit that final] salvation that is ready to be revealed [for you] in the last time.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"color: #008080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS', sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">1 Peter 1:3-5 AMP<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"color: #008080;\">*\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0~ \u00a0 \u2665 \u00a0 ~\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u271e\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0~ \u00a0\u2665 \u00a0 ~ \u00a0 *<\/span><\/p>\n<p>As I read this passage, three phrases got my attention:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>ever-living hope<\/li>\n<li>inheritance which is&#8230;imperishable, and<\/li>\n<li>being guarded<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>As I studied each one I realized, while each is uniquely different, they are all tied together. \u00a0According to John Piper:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201c\u2026<em>hope<\/em>, as we typically think about it, is a desire for some future thing which we are uncertain of attaining\u2026. Christian <em>hope<\/em> is a strong confidence in God which has power to produce changes in how we live.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">&#8211; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.desiringgod.org\/sermons\/the-power-of-hope\" target=\"_blank\">read more here; Desiring God.com<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Our hope is provided by the death of Christ. \u00a0Because of His Resurrection, our hope possesses life and vitality&#8212;a living hope. \u00a0We can hold tight to the confident hope we have in Christ because He has paved the way for us. \u00a0Look at Hebrews 6:19:<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">This hope we have as an anchor of the soul,<br \/>\nboth sure and steadfast, and which enters the Presence behind the veil,<br \/>\nwhere the forerunner has entered for us, even Jesus&#8230;.<\/p>\n<p>Amazing, isn\u2019t it? \u00a0Christ went before us to give us hope and provide us with an inheritance. \u00a0Ephesians 1:11 states \u201cIn Him also we have obtained an inheritance.\u201d \u00a0As I read through different translations of 1 Peter 1:3-5, these are a few of the words used to describe our eternal inheritance:<\/p>\n<h4 style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"color: #008080; font-family: 'Book Antiqua', Palatino;\">incorruptible, imperishable, undefiled, priceless, unsullied, and unfading<\/span><\/h4>\n<p>Can we say that about any earthly inheritance we might receive? \u00a0Plus, this eternal inheritance is already ours. \u00a0We do not have to do anything to earn it and it can never be taken away from us. \u00a0Which brings us to our last phrase.<\/p>\n<p>The term <em>guarded<\/em> often means &#8216;shielded or protected by&#8217;. \u00a0God is not only standing guard over our inheritance but we are shielded by His power as well. \u00a0Job 33:11 HCSB states \u201cHe stands watch over all my paths.\u201d \u00a0John 10:28 HCSB reminds us \u201cI give them eternal life, and they will never perish\u2014ever! No one will snatch them out of My hand.\u201d \u00a0We are guarded by His power. God\u2019s power is our security.<\/p>\n<p>Our hope is in Jesus Christ, who provided us with an eternal inheritance through His Resurrection. \u00a0This inheritance is (as we ourselves are) being shielded and protected by the power of God Himself.<\/p>\n<h3 style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>That<\/strong> is <span style=\"color: #008080;\"><em>living hope<\/em><\/span>.<\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Praised (honored, blessed) be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ (the Messiah)! \u00a0By His boundless mercy we have been born again to an ever-living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, \u00a0[Born anew] into an inheritance which is beyond the reach of change and decay [imperishable], unsullied and unfading, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":164,"featured_media":13840,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3020],"tags":[7838,9003,5889,3367,9004,1287,425,9002,4014,7921,3174],"class_list":["post-26225","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-devotions","tag-1-peter-13-5","tag-being-guarded","tag-cynda-cottrill","tag-daily-devotions-2","tag-desiring-god-com","tag-gch","tag-girlfriends-coffee-hour","tag-imperishable-inheritance","tag-john-piper","tag-living-hope","tag-seeking-him-devotional","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/SeekingHimLogo.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p39pHp-6OZ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26225","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/164"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26225"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26225\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26237,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26225\/revisions\/26237"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}