Hope in the Word

5 min read

44 “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them, and I will raise them up at the last day. 45 It is written in the Prophets: ‘They will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard the Father and learned from him comes to me.”

John 6:44-45

At first, what Jesus says in verse 44 sounds like a very strong statement of predestination—as if to say, “The Father selects those who will be saved and makes them go to Jesus.”

But then Jesus begins to explain what He means in verse 45. Jesus is simply talking about faith. If we believe that God is real and if we believe that the word of God comes from the heart and mouth of God and if we place our hope in God and God alone, we would come to see that everything in the Scriptures point to Christ.

Someone may object, saying, “Well, there are Jews who believe in God and believe that the Old Testament scriptures come from Him. What about them?” And in response, we would say, “They see the Messiah in the Scriptures. They just don’t see the Messiah in Jesus.”

And so all the signs that Jesus performed were meant to be a testimony of the fact that Jesus is indeed the Messiah who was promised in the Scriptures. For people who put their hope completely in God, they could see that Jesus is the promised Messiah through the testimony of the Scriptures, through the testimony of the signs, and through the testimony of Jesus Himself.

For people who put their hope, not in God, but in the things of the world, they could only see the signs and go “Ooooo. Ahhhh.” Their satisfaction ends with the chills running up and down their spines. Or for others who put their hope in the things of the world, they rejected the signs altogether, supposing that Jesus was either a charlatan or someone possessed by the devil.

Those who put their hope in the Father are able to hear the Father and are drawn to Christ through the Scriptures. Those who put their hope in the world are not drawn to Christ because He draws them away from the idols that they put their hope in.

My entire life is found in Christ. The Holy Spirit points me and invites me to hope in the Father and not in the world. And from that fundamental starting point of my very existence, the entry point of my relationship with Him is found in the Word of God, who is Jesus Christ.

But because of my sinful nature, my hope is sometimes drawn to other things. When that happens, the word of God becomes merely a check box in my daily routine. I must remember that Jesus, the Son of God, is not an imaginary friend found in letters on a page, but Someone who loves me more than I love myself.

Father, Thank You for Your word. Help not to treat Your word as something to read, but Someone to know. In Jesus’s name. Amen.