When I was in sixth grade I was in a boutique with my mom when I found the most perfect silver bracelet I had ever seen. The clerk let me try it on, and I fell in love. My heart sank when I checked the price tag. It cost more than I had, so I knew I would have to formulate an earning/saving strategy to purchase it. I devised a foolproof plan that hinged on getting money for my birthday, then about 6 weeks away. As I executed my plan, I visited the store several times to check on my precious. About a week out I had all the necessary funds except the money I planned to receive on my birthday. I was filled with hope as I entered the home stretch.

Hope is the confident expectation of future good.

Funny thing about hope, though: it’s dependent.

A few days before my birthday, I was invited to attend a friend’s birthday party. After cake and ice cream, we gathered around to watch her open her presents. Her last present was a small box from her parents. She opened the gift and squealed with delight as she lifted MY silver bracelet from the box. For me the air felt like it left the room, and a lump swelled in my throat. Just like that, my hope disintegrated. I no longer had the confident expectation that I would be the owner of that treasure. I failed to calculate for the possibility that someone else would purchase the bracelet before I did. My hope rested on my efforts, and I guess I overestimated the capacity of my twelve-year-old self. My hope depended on the wrong person.

As we rehearse the story of the countless promises and prophecies fulfilled by the first advent of Jesus, we engage in the discipline of re-instructing our hearts to hope--to confidently expect future good. Thankfully as believers, our hope is not dependent on ourselves. In fact, the future good for which we are hoping is something we cannot bring about on our own, therefore it must rest on someone outside ourselves. Our hope rests on Jesus, the One who came and will come again. Recalling the promises that were fulfilled by His first coming, we remind ourselves that we aren’t wishful thinkers or fanciful optimists as we look to His second. We haven’t created a fiction of good things coming for us. No, they have been foretold to us by One who cannot lie, and the Spirit he has given us is the down payment on the extravagant inheritance waiting for us who have invested our hope in Jesus! (Eph. 1:13-14)

Therefore, we put no confidence in the flesh. Instead, we fix our hope for future glory on Jesus Christ and say, “Marana tha! Come, LORD Jesus!”

Read:

Bethlehem Ephrathah,
You are small among the clans of Judah;
One will come from you to be ruler over Israel for me.
His origin is from antiquity, from ancient times.
-Micah 5:2

After Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of King Herod, wise men from the east arrived in Jerusalem saying, “Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we have seen his star at its rising and have come to worship him.” -Matthew 2:1-2

After [Jesus] had said this, he was taken up as they were watching, and a cloud took him out of their sight. While he was going, they were gazing into heaven, and suddenly two men in white clothes stood by them. They said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up into heaven? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come in the same way that you have seen him going into heaven.” -Acts 1:9-11 (emphasis mine)

Pray: Jesus, in the same way that you came just as you promised in the days of the prophets, you will come again just as you promised in the days of the apostles. Today I praise you for your faithfulness. In fulfilling the ancient prophecies by Your incarnation, You have demonstrated that the only reasonable thing for me to do is trust you and take You at Your word. You are the foundation and the fulfillment of my confident expectation of future glory.