LIVING HOPE

By pilgrim 6 September, 2020 PILGRIMAGE 1 Comment

Imagine you are sick with a difficult disease, for which there is no known cure. As you inch closer to sure death, you have lost all hope. All you can do is enjoy the moment, within the limitations of what the sickness enforces on you. Then unexpectedly you encounter a doctor who promises you a cure. You begin to look at him with the same skepticism you had when other doctors told you they had a cure but actually didn’t. But as you interact with him, he comes across as a genuine doctor who unlike others is truly interested in your welfare. But what makes all the difference for you to believe in him was that he himself was once struck with the same illness but escaped death and was cured. Your hope is rekindled, you trust in him and start taking his treatment. As you do, you find that your body responds and the death in you is being replaced by life. And as this process unfolds further, you are filled with a living hope.

The journey of a pilgrim is similar in many ways. Life is beset with desperation, sickness and hopelessness. Death is a certainty and that is unsettling. Life is devoid of lasting joy and satisfaction. You go from adventure to pleasure to ecstasy, none of which truly lasts and satisfies you. You have considered many remedies to death but none have come good. Then you meet Christ, who comes to you with love and genuine concern. You examine his life and find that unlike any other person on earth before or after, he conquered death and rose again from the grave. He tells you that the treatment for you is to believe in him. And if you do, your sins would be forgiven, death would be overcome and life would become meaningful and satisfying again.

Peter writes,

In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time——–Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy,for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls. (1Peter 1:3-9)

You do place your trust in him, invite him into your life with a personal prayer and start living a life that is pleasing to him. And as you continue to do so, you find that his words are true! Unlike other treatments, this is no empty one, for now you find that within you is an inexpressible and glorious joy. Life still has adventure, pleasure and ecstasy, along with its fair share of failures and setbacks, but there is an underlying meaningfulness and joy that had eluded you till now. You know for certain that the hope within you is real and living, and you are receiving, in Peter’s words, the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

So today if you are still desperately seeking for answers and searching for a living hope, why not try the treatment of believing in Christ? Unless you try, you will never know!