Genesis: The Story of God's FaithfulnessShembull

LIVING WITH HOPE

Listen to the audio guide to hear the complete devotional with Scripture, teaching and a worship song! Find a condensed, written version of this devotional below: 

Imagine running a marathon without a designated finish line. Without a clear direction, you’d get off course. With no hope of finishing, you might even just quit running. It’s hope that provides the direction and motivation for race, and this applies to life as well. Hope can come from things like an upcoming vacation or a possible promotion, but the Bible offers a hope that’s more concrete - more dependable - more life-giving. 

In the story of Noah, we see Noah obeying God’s command to build an ark in light of God’s promise to send a destructive flood. Noah is living by faith, not by sight, placing his hope in God’s promise. 

Just as Noah lived with hope, so we live with the hope of Christ’s second coming. In this future reality, all things will be made new. God will make a new heaven and a new earth and come to dwell among his people. Living with hope practically manifests itself as obedience to God. 

Just as Noah obediently built the ark in faith:    

• So we obey God’s command to love our enemies, hoping that Christ’s love will flow through us and bring them into a relationship with God.    
• We obey God by maintaining joy in suffering, confident in our hope that God will one day reward our faithful suffering and banish its effects in the new heaven and new earth.    
• And we obey by giving sacrificially, storing up treasures in heaven instead as we expectantly await our eternal reality to come. 

Just like Noah, we live by faith and not by sight. We fear and obey God, even when it doesn’t make sense from the world’s perspective, because our hope for eternal life shapes our present reality. 

REFLECT: Think about an area in your life that is impacted by your hope in Christ and his future return. Take some time to thank God for this hope.