Is Your Hope in the Past Tense?

by Skip Heitzig | April 5, 2024

Thomas Jefferson, our third president, loved Christianity, but he did not believe the miraculous parts of the Bible. So he rewrote the New Testament and deleted all the miracles of Jesus, focusing only on His moral teachings.

The closing words of the Jefferson Bible are these: "There they lay Jesus and rolled a great stone at the mouth of the sepulcher and departed." Loose translation: He died, and He's never coming back. Thomas Jefferson had a past-tense hope.

In that way, he was like the two disciples on the road to Emmaus in Luke 24. As they walked along, they talked about the betrayal, crucifixion, and death of Jesus. They were processing their feelings out loud, as grieving people do. They were at the lowest point of their lives, because they had expected a conquering Christ. Instead, they got a crucified Christ. I believe they were so discouraged that they were done following Jesus. They were calling it quits and going home.

When Jesus came walking alongside them, they didn't recognize Him. Of course, they weren't expecting to see Him alive again. But the real reason was that "their eyes were restrained" (v. 16). In other words, God kept them from recognizing Him.

When Jesus questioned them, their words revealed how fragile their hope had become: Jesus "was a Prophet" (v. 19). "We were hoping..." (v. 21). Past tense. They were saying, "It's over. Our hope is dead."

I think Jesus wanted to reveal Himself to them differently, not by sight, but by word. He wanted his Word, the Scriptures, to have maximum impact. So He gave them a Bible study. "And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself" (v. 27). After they recognized Him and He vanished, "they said to one another, 'Did not our heart burn within us while He talked with us on the road, and while He opened the Scriptures to us?'" (v. 32).

The Bible says, "Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God" (Romans 10:17). A lot of times, people say, "If I could only see God, if I only had a sign, then I'd believe." First, that's very shallow, if your faith is based on an outward sign. Second, it wouldn't last, because the next time you experience a hardship and don't get a follow-up miraculous sign, your faith would crumble.

God is always speaking to you, revealing Himself to you, in His Word. But if you have been going through a very dark period, maybe you've thought, God doesn't care about me. I am forsaken by God. That is a lie. God cares about you, and He wants His Word to have an impact on your life.

Maybe you've had fragile hopes shattered, and you think, I used to trust in Jesus. I once had hope that He would help me. But those hopes are gone. That's a sad place to be. But remember, the Word of God states, "God…has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead" (1 Peter 1:3).

When people are walking closely with the Lord, we say that they're on fire for Him. I'm praying that your heart will get on fire for Him too. The experience of those disciples can be yours. If your faith has slowed down, your hope has crumbled, or your hope is a past-tense experience, dig deep into His Word. When Jesus reveals Himself to you, it will set your heart on fire.

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