I Set My Hope On Jesus
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If we’re honest, our journey in following Jesus is often far from faithful. Our faith is weak and wavering in this broken world. Trials test us. Questions and doubts remain. Deep emotional wounds fester. A battle with sin persists. Temptations overcome. Shame pulls us under. The world and its rewards entice us. Our hearts are ever prone to stray.
When your own faith is shaken, where do you look for assurance?
In Matthew, Jesus tells a parable demonstrating what it looks like to build a faithful life upon him and his words. “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock,” he says in Matthew 7:24-25.
When our faith is shaken, it seems we often turn our attention to our “house,” to the life we have built. We see our weak pursuit of God within the trail we’re facing. We see the doubts that invade our hearts. We see the ways we have failed in our battle with sin. And we become discouraged. But we must remember that what is significant about the house in Jesus’s parable is not the house itself but the foundation it was built upon. When our faith is shaken, what if we looked not to our house, but to our foundation? What if we looked not to our own actions and efforts but to Jesus himself?
Our faith will endure, not because we always get things right or have enough resolve, but because of the foundation upon which our faith is built: Jesus. “And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock.”
We might feel far from God. We might feel overcome with failure and shame. But we can choose to direct our attention to what we know to be true.
“There’s a truth that’s more than all I feel…”
What truth can we set our hope on?
“My rock my only trust
Who set his heart upon me first
I sent my hope in Jesus”
We may waver, but our Rock will not. 2 Timothy 2:13 reminds us of Jesus’s unshakeable faithfulness to us: “If we are faithless, he remains faithful - for he cannot deny himself.” And Philippians 1:6 assures us God’s enduring commitment to us: “And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.” Jesus set his heart upon us while we were still gone astray, so why would we think there is anything we could do to lose his love? “We love because he first loved us.” (1 John 4:19).
When our faith is shaken, we can set our gaze and our hope upon the strong and faithful foundation of Jesus. In the midst of the struggle, we can look not to our own faith, resolve, or efforts but to One who never wavers, and cry, “Give me grace to finish till I worship on that final day.” This we can trust: our Rock will prove to be strong to the end.
