God’s Love Fuels Our Hope

Romans 5:5: "And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us."

In the times we live riddled with fear, divisiveness, violence and death the security of hope is fading for many people.  One of the great privileges and responsibilities that we have in this world is to be messengers of the hope that is in the true and living God.  What really brings hope in the world is the recognition and the experience of real love that can only be found where the love of God rules in the hearts of people.  Some of us who profess to be Christians do not see that God has left us in the world to be the living messengers that people can be loved unconditionally as God has loved us.  It was this idea that our Lord Jesus had when He taught His disciples through the washing of the disciples’ feet in the John’s Gospel, Chapter 13, when He said to them, “By this all men shall know that you are my disciples by your love for one another.”  What was true of our Lord with His disciples then is true of us today, that He set His indescribable love on undeserved people whom He never plans to give up on for all eternity.

Our present text for meditation tells us that hope is not disappointed in a believer because of what God has poured into us.  The structure of the sentence in the original Greek language allows us to have the fullest understanding that the love relationship that we have with God can only exist because God has first poured His love into our hearts.  So it allows us to see that we do not produce the love we have for God, but we are able to love Him with the same love He has put into our hearts.  It is reasonable to say that the new life in Christ comes with it a new capacity to love, be loved and recognize that we have been loved.  We are the only group of people on this earth that have experienced internally the love of God and also have been enabled to share that love with others in our spheres of life.   What sustains us who believe is that we are connected with God by an unbreakable love bond that was revealed and demonstrated through the gift of Christ to us.  The Apostle Paul says it another way when he said, “it is the love of Christ that motivates us…” (I Corinthians 5:14, 15). This evidence of His love fuels us to worship Him with all of our hearts and trust His faithfulness as the basis to sustain the hope we have in Him.  We know with certainty what He has done.  When we read the entirety of Romans 5 we see the magnitude of that love that was openly demonstrated for each of us.  When we understand what the Scripture teaches us when it says, “In this is love, it is not that we loved God, but that He loved us…we love because He first loved us” (I John 4:10; 19).

It is not only that His love gives us hope, but His love makes us more certain of hope beyond sight.  His love to us takes the maybe out of hope and turns it into a certainty that waits on the fulfillment of His will for those He has loved and saved for Himself.  It is because we are loved in fact, in experience, and by promises, the hope we have in God will never disappoint.  In fact, His love to us is the greatest example of (I Corinthians 13:8a), which says, “Love never fails”. It will never fail us nor allow us to be separated from Him no matter what comes (Romans 8:35-39).   So we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God because it is His love in our hearts that becomes the supreme reason we believe we are eternally saved.  

Prayer: Eternal God and our Heavenly Father, we do ask your forgiveness for underestimating and taking for granted the power of Your love to us.  We praise You and give thanks for the manner of love You have bestowed upon us that we should be called the children of God.  Please help us to maintain focus of the positive reality of Your love for us and may it please impel our hearts with desire to share it with others, in Jesus Name, amen.

(by Pastor Cockrell)