DAILY DEVOTIONAL – June 27, 2019
“A Living Hope”
Prayer: Heavenly Father, thank you for making us Your children and giving us new birth through the waters of baptism. Help us to live each day fully alive and fully in the Word of Christ Jesus Your Son, that same Word that worked salvation for us on the cross and in our baptism. Amen.
Scripture: 1 Peter 1:3-7
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, 5 who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. 6 In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, 7 so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
Devotional – “A Living Hope”
Today is my daughter Lizzy’s third birthday. I’m not sure how it is, but I was looking at some pictures of her birth in the hospital, and somehow that day feels like only 3 days ago and 30 years ago at the same time. How absolutely precious are the days we have in this life, the days we have not just to share with those we love, but precious few days we have to live our own lives to the fullest.
This afternoon I went home for a bit to celebrate my daughter’s birthday, eat some cake, help her open presents and make her feel special. Of course, being only 3 years old, Lizzy doesn’t fully yet comprehend what it is we are celebrating. While my wife and I tried to make every little moment of our celebration memorable, and of course capture every moment possible on camera, in Lizzy’s mind it is a day like any other…just filled with awesome presents, cake and pizza!
My daughter has always been a bit all over the place. She is my daughter after all. She is quite often off in her own imaginary world, reciting her favorite books, cartoons or songs. My wife and I tried to make each present a special occasion, but all my daughter wanted to do was jump on her trampoline and read her books. She couldn’t even eat one whole chocolate cupcake before she was asking to get down and get back to doing something else. Initially, I tried to encourage her to come back, sit down and focus more on each event of our celebration…but then I was reminded of an important lesson. As I watched my daughter bounce back and forth, completely uninterested in celebrating one day three years ago that she doesn’t really understand, I was reminded how a birthday is both the most important and least important day of our life.
The obvious reason why our birthday is important is because without that day, we wouldn’t have life at all. There is no doubt a reason to celebrate the one day, that day that God had already seen and planned from eternity, that one day at that specific time when (as David says in Psalm 139) we were finished being “knit together in our mother’s womb” and God called us into this life. This life is a pure gift of God’s grace and desire to love and it should be celebrated.
Yet, maybe for less obvious reasons, our physical birthday is also the least important day of our lives. My children, just like yours, were the most adorable babies ever to be born in the world. In those precious moments when you lay eyes on your child for the first time, it is near impossible to believe that there is a bad bone in their little body or that there is a single thing wrong with them. But we all know the reality that in a very real sense, from the moment we are born each and every one of us has both begun new life and begun the dying process at the same time. In all of their cuteness and apparent perfection, every child, every human, is born in sin and is in need of salvation. That may be hard to digest at first, but as any parent knows…just give it a year or two!
While my wife and I will continue to celebrate the birthdays of our children, there is a day eternally more significant than June 27th, 2016. The real celebration, the real birthday we will pull out all the stops for and the real birthday that is truly the single most important day of my children’s lives is that date of their baptism; August 7th for Lizzy and April 21st for my son Jesse. That is the day that they were born to true, everlasting life. That is the day I celebrate most of all because it is the day I can look back on and take absolute and certain hope from; hope in the fact that whenever that day comes when my children depart this life (long after I am gone I pray), they will live forever in the presence of our God and Savior Jesus.
How can I be so sure? My certainty comes from the Word of God that says in our text for today that God has caused me, my wife and my children to be born again to a LIVING hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, unfading. Peter says in our text that the hope of our salvation is kept in heaven by the power of God who guards the faith of all of His faithful children so that they are ready to have their salvation revealed to them in the last time.
Just as certain as Christ rose from the dead, so to have my children and all who have been baptized in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit been raised up already with Christ! That is how certain this living hope is. Romans 6 says that all who have been baptized have been baptized into Christ’s death in order that “just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with Him in a death like His, we shall certainly be united with Him in a resurrection like His.”
A living hope. That is what God’s great gift of baptism has given us because it is God who does the work in baptism. Baptism is not a symbol or a religious act, it is a sacrament commanded by God in order that the faithful would be cleansed, marked by God and truly saved by baptism. This is why Jesus tells Nicodemus in John 3, “Unless you are born again of water and the spirit, you cannot see the kingdom of God.” Baptism is the promise and the work of God, of His Spirit, not of my wife or I or of my children.
Though our physical birthday is an important day in our life, and though our baptism is the single most important day in our life, God’s Word says in our text from 1 Peter that we have been born to a LIVING hope. We have not been reborn in order to focus and live in the past, to live for that one day or to live in the way we used to live before we received the grace and salvation of God. As I watched my daughter become increasingly disinterested in celebrating her birthday, just wanting to get on with her life and play, I was reminded how important it is that we as big’ol grown-up adults remember that we too have been reborn in our baptism and through faith in Christ to a LIVING hope.
What does it mean to live our life with a living hope? How do we live life to the fullest? How do we live even just a little bit of the eternal life of paradise that awaits us in heaven? Thankfully, Jesus tells us that very answer in His prayer to God in John 17:3, “And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.”
We only know God through His Word – His Word that is the power of our baptism and His written Word that gives us life each day. Jesus tells us in John 6:63, “The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life.” Live life with the certain and living hope of Jesus Christ my friends. Live each day knowing God, following Jesus Christ and living in His Word.
Thanks for joining me today for another time of devotion, and remember, that God has forgiven yesterday, is with you today and has already taken care of tomorrow. Amen.
