Honey From The Rock

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Honey From The Rock
Psalm 81:16

"Sweet Stuff From God's Word"

A daily Bible study with Victor Knowles
Copyright 2007

A Living Hope

This entry was posted on 06-29-2007 and is filed under Devotional.

"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead" (1 Peter 1:3 NIV).

Think how all heaven must have celebrated the night God became the Father of our incarnate Lord! God is "rich in mercy" (Eph. 2:4) and wants us to be merciful as well (Matt. 5:7). What sets Christianity apart from other religions is that it grants new life to a person.

Another distinctive of Christianity is the hope a Christian possesses. The pagan world of the apostles' day had no hope of life beyond the grave. Theocritus said, "Hope goes with life; all hopeless are the dead." Aeschylus wrote, "Once dead there is no resurrection more." Lucretius uttered these mournful words: "None ever wake again whom the cold pause of life hath overtaken." Not wonder Paul wrote Christians not to "grieve like the rest of men who have no hope" (1 Thess. 4:13) and spoke of those who are "without hope and without God in the world" (Eph. 2:12). The Christian's hope lives because the One in whom they have put their hope lives! Jesus Christ, according to His own testimony, is "alive forevermore" (Rev. 1:18).

[Condensed from "Thirteen Lessons on 1 & 2 Peter" by Victor Knowles, College Press, 1985.]

Song: "My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness; I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly lean on Jesus' name. On Christ the solid Rock I stand; all other ground is sinking sand" (Edward Mott).