A Prayer about Hope Setting
Therefore, prepare your minds for action, and being sober-minded; set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. (1 Pet. 1:13)
Heavenly Father, you won’t let us get away from thinking about your grace for even one minute, will you? And let me hasten to say thank you, thank you, thank you.
I praise you for the day you finally convinced the legalist and leper in me that salvation is by grace alone through faith alone. I praise you for the ongoing schooling in the sufficiency of your grace for all the broken things in my life: broken relationships, broken health, broken promises, broken church . . . broken me.
And now I praise you for commanding me to set my hope on yet to be received grace— the unleashed fullness, the unfettered wonder, the undiminished glory of your contra-conditional love for us in Jesus. There is no God like you. There is no God so immeasurably generous with such ill-deserving people like me.
Help me to remember that this hope-setting command is just as much a command to be obeyed as “Do not lie, do not steal, and do not covet.” You are serious about where we set our hope.
Father, you are so wise, for you know if we don’t intentionally and fully set our hope on your present and future grace, we’ll set it somewhere else: on saviors that cannot save, on people who are not God, on gospels that are not gospels, and on idols that will ultimately fail us.
Lord Jesus, I’ve never so looked forward to the day when you will be fully revealed— when the first fruits of grace will give way to the full harvest of grace, your gathered bride and renewed world. Until that day, keep us engaged in your story of redemption and restoration. Where do we work for justice? Where do we show your mercy? How shall we walk humbly with our God? We ask and pray in your trustworthy name.
Amen.