Our Present and Future Hope

 

Krista, Jadyn, and I have been reading Everyday Gospel by Paul Tripp this year.

The daily devotionals have been a help in thinking about each daily reading through the Gospel.

Part of today's reading is Exodus 33:14 - 16.

And he said, “My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.” And he said to him, ‘If your presence will not go with me, do not bring us up from here. For how shall it be known that I have found favor in your sight,  I and your people? Is it not in your going with us, so that we are distinct,  I and your people, from every other people on the face of the earth?”

Moses states that he would not go to the Promised Land if the Lord was not with him.  Tripp writes, "Moses understands that there is no hope for Israel and no reason for Israel to travel further if God doesn't go with them."

"[God] will go with us wherever we go and will do for us what we have no power to do for ourselves—not because we deserve it, but because he is generous in love and mercy.  It really is true that he is everything we need."

Today's Bible reading and devotional, the Psalm passage I preached on January 12, and what keeps coming up in Trinity's Daniel series is that our hope needs to be in the Lord.

Moses needed God more than the Promised Land.
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego needed God more than the king's approval.
Daniel needed God more than the safety given by this world.
Psalm 118:8 and 9 say, "It is better to take refuge in the LORD than to trust in man.  It is better to take refuge in the LORD than to trust in princes."

This hope in the LORD should affect how I pray, spend my time, interact with others, and do everything else in my life.