The Hope to which He has called us (VI) Christ in you the hope of glory

I am praying as I write, that the Lord would give us a spirit of wisdom and revelation of the mystery of  "Christ in us the hope of glory" (Colossians 1:27).  And it is a mystery, a hidden or secret thing that is not obvious to the understanding, and which hides a purpose or council (Thayer), in this case the purpose and council of God. That it's described as a mystery underlines the fact that we need a revelation of it. The word “Christian” in fact means “little christ,” and while this morning's verse includes the amazing fact that we are invited into relationship with Him, it goes further in that Christ is actually inside of you and me, if we are believers. But as I keep saying, a revelation of this needs to go far, far deeper than our knowing, even in all the diverse ways that we know and experience it (Him Romans 8:16).

In particular, as with all spiritual revelation, the type of revelation of “Christ in you the hope of Glory” that we are talking  about here, comes with the Grace to unlock the hidden Christ within, and to release Him first and foremost to ourselves, and then to the World. It is His intention to release millions of Christians (little christs) as His ambassadors of hope, to this wicked and hurting world. This is so in line with His primary purpose that “He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth—in Him” (Ephesians 1:10). Before we were in Christ, we were without Him “being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world” (Ephesians 2:12). Without hope we "live" in various states of death, emotionally, spiritually and even physically (see the Stockdale paradox 26 September). But we have Christ the hope of the World actually living in us!

Part of the problem,  for both Christians and unbelievers, is that God is invisible, and that the hope we are talking about is in an invisible reality. But as Paul explains “hope that is seen is not hope; for why does one still hope for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with perseverance” (Romans 8:24, 25). And since it is so easy to get discouraged, and we need perseverance,  and so the hope.  It is vital therefore that we pray with Paul for an ongoing of spirit of revelation of the hope to which He has called us, and in particular of “Christ in us,  the hope of glory.” In this way as His ambassadors of reconciliation we are a living demonstration of the sure and living hope of the gospel to a world without hope (2 Corinthians 5:20; 1Peter 1:3). 

Father, Peter telling that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night, and that the heavens and the earth will be dissolved,  asks what manner of life we should therefore live (2 Peter 3:10,11).  Clearly we need to live and demonstrate hope.  So I am asking again this morning Lord that You would fill us with hope, and help us to deal with the garbage, the issues of life that get in the way of receiving both the revelation with its accompanying enabling grace that enables us to truly live in the reality of Christ in me the hope of glory. In Jesus name Amen