Big Hope. Big Dreams

"Are BIG dreams only for a few or for ALL of God’s children?"

“For we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and your love for all of God’s people, which come from your CONFIDENT HOPE of what God has reserved for you in heaven.” (Colossians 1:4-5 NLT)

“If ye continue in the faith grounded and settled, and BE NOT MOVED AWAY FROM THE HOPE of the gospel, which ye have heard, and which was preached to every creature which is under heaven” (Colossians 1:23)

Why believe in something which offers no hope? Why believe in the hope it offers if it is small and inconsequential? I might hope to have a bowl of popcorn, but I could miss it and be okay. Hope that does not offer something grand and glorious is not really hope.

God gives us hope in something magnificent, in what is exceeding, abundantly above what we could ask or think. He gives us the “grand prize,” that thing we could never dream of. And then knowing His character, that He is all things and preeminent and the fullness of God, we can throw all we are onto Him and call it faith, assured that He will do such things He has given us so much hope of.

“Living within you is the Christ who floods you with the expectation of glory! This mystery of Christ, embedded within us, becomes A HEAVENLY TREASURE CHEST OF HOPE filled with the riches of glory for his people, and God wants everyone to know it!” (Colossians 1:27 TPT)

Not paltry hope. Not, “Oh, I hope so.” But the hope of the glory of heaven itself, seen here on earth. We mute the hope of the gospel and refuse to dream such outlandish dreams, but more and more, I find myself dreaming them.

The Israelites were to dream of a Messiah who would be born amongst them. They were to see Him with every sacrifice, every feast day. To take the Passover and know it was a picture of what Christ would do. God made the vow of this great hope to Abraham and again to Isaac and again to Jacob. He promised it to Joseph, to King David. Yet when Christ came, they didn’t recognize Him. They didn’t see their hope walking amongst them.

In Jesus, we have great hope of salvation, but we have largely made it that bowl of popcorn. We don’t think big enough. This is the God who healed lepers, which is impossible. Who stopped one woman’s issue of blood, impossible in her day. This is God who made blind men see without any medical doctor’s involvement. Who stood a lame man on his feet. Couldn’t be done. Who raised the dead, one of which had been dead for four days.

He pulled a coin from a fish’s mouth. He created a net full of them, so much weight the boat began to sink. And multiplied a boy’s lunch to feed a crowd of thousands.

What have we accepted that the blood of Christ has given us hope for? And is our hope as big as God’s? Why do I have to accept the lesser vision the devil hands me? I am connected to the life of the Vine, to God’s eternal life. Sickness and disease is the fruit of death. Those following the Shepherd know no want. I’m no longer in the kingdom of darkness, no longer connected to sin and death.

How big is my faith? How big is God! And how much do I hope for? As long as I am content with where I am, as long as my expectation is small and complacent, as long as I make excuses for it, then my view prevents hope as God has created it to be. If I can pin my hope on heaven, which I have not seen, if I can believe that big, if I can pin my hope on Jesus’ glorious return and meeting Him in the air, if that is not outlandish to me, then why is everything else God desires to give me?

Why must I wait for the fullness of who God is and what He desires for me when He lives in me now? Today, I have hope. But not hope as I can dream it. Hope as big and glorious as God, whose presence lit the entire earth with a Word, not once but twice.

“We can all draw close to him with the veil removed from our faces. And with no veil we all become like mirrors who brightly reflect the glory of the Lord Jesus. We are being transfigured into his very image as we move from one brighter level of glory to another. And this glorious transfiguration comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.” (2 Corinthians 3:18 TPT)

“For God is satisfied to have all his fullness dwelling in Christ.” (Colossians 1:19)

Photo by Zdeněk Macháček on Unsplash


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Suzanne D. Williams, Author
www.suzannedwilliams.com
www.feelgoodromance.com