Day 22 - Hopeless Without God

Child of Hope: An Advent Devotional

Sunday, December 21, 2008

Hopeless Without God

Formerly… you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world.
Ephesians 2:12

There must be few things worse than being without a land to call home. Displaced by war or famine the refugee can spend years trying to put down roots and still not succeed. Not able to go home, he is often despised in the land of refuge. Without the rights and privileges of citizenship he seems fated to wander forever. He is a foreigner. He is excluded. He is without hope.

That’s what we once were. We may have forgotten the experience, grown used to the benefits we enjoy, but we were not born as citizens of the Kingdom of God. We were not members of the household of Israel. We were spiritual refugees, longing for acceptance and home. We were hopeless; but we also knew that we could do nothing to change our lot. We were also powerless, without hope and without God.

“But then,” continues Paul, “in Christ, you who were once far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ” (Eph 2:13). When we were without a prayer, God sent Jesus. That’s the irony of the incarnation. God sent a child, born in a stable far from home, in order to give us the privilege of belonging. Christ left His Father’s side in order to open the gates of paradise for us. He emptied Himself so that we might be filled; He was made poor so that we might be rich in the things of God. Through His blood, Jesus has made us children of the covenants of the promise. Excluded no longer, we are included among the number of His people. By grace, through faith, we now belong; and we have hope.

Prayer for the Day
Merciful God,
always faithful in Your love for us,
thank You that now we have been engrafted
into the vine of Israel, and are inheritors of the promise.
Help us to draw all who will come
into Your welcoming embrace.
Through Christ our Lord.
Amen.