Your Great and Glorious Hope

Article 59

By Steven J. Hogan 

This world is extremely corrupt and wicked. As Christians, we can see the world’s evil, and are often affected by it. Our flesh is sin-prone, and we are daily tempted to give in to its sinful desires. And the devil, far more than anyone else, hates us and wants to hurt us and lies to us and wants to deceive us.   

Thankfully, God the Father greatly loves us, for He chose us to be His child. Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, died for us and continually prays for us. The Holy Spirit, our comforter and teacher, is always with us, and empowers us to do what is good and right. God has also given us His word, and it’s by His word, Spirit, and church that we can live a God-glorifying, Christ-like life. And God has given us hope, the promise of a glorious future, the promise of the good things He will do for us in the ages to come. 

Hope is encouraging for it gives us a glimpse of an amazing, incredible, and wonderful future that God has planned for us. Hope is purifying, for it motivates us to not sin against Him who has done so much for us, and who has such a great future in store for us. Hope helps us to persevere, to keep going for God to the end of our life or the end of this age. Living all out for God, sacrificing and suffering for Him during our short life on earth, is definitely worth the eternal glory and blessings we will receive and, most importantly, the super-close relationship we will have with Christ Himself. 

God tells us all about our past justification and present sanctification, but He also talks about our hope, our future glorification and eternal life. Hope is looking forward to this future, is expecting and excited about God’s everlasting glory. Hope is not optional, it’s essential. That’s because it helps us to be spiritually strong as we wait to be with Him. We must have hope to be growing and fruitful in these tough and troublesome end-times – and this is especially true for that last generation of Christians. 

In this article, you will find this long list of 140 New and Old Testament verses that speak specifically about your hope. I encourage you to take the time to read and think about the great and glorious future that God has in store for you. And then pass it on to family and friends. 

* Matthew 5:3 – “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
* Matthew 5:5 – “Blessed are the gentle, for they shall inherit the earth.”
* Matthew 5:11-12 – “Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great.”
* Matthew 6:6 – “When you pray, go into your inner room, close your door, and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you.”
* Matthew 6:9-10 – “Our Father, who is in heaven, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is heaven.” 

* Matthew 24:31 – “He will send forth His angels with a great trumpet and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of the sky to the other.”
* Matthew 25:19-21 – “The one who received the five talents came up and brought five more talents, saying, ‘Master, you entrusted five talents to me. See, I have gained five more talents.’ His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful slave, you were faithful with a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.’”
* Luke 6:25-26 – “Blessed are you when men hate you, and ostracize you, and insult you, and scorn your name as evil, for the sake of the Son of Man. Be glad in that day and leap for joy, for behold your reward is great in heaven.”
* Luke 16:9 – “I say to you, make friends for yourselves by means of the wealth of unrighteousness, so that when it fails, they will receive you into the eternal dwellings.”
* Luke 20:34-36 – “The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage, but those who are considered worthy to attain to that age and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage; for they cannot even die anymore, because they are like angels, and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection.” 

* John 3:16 – “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.”
* John 14:2-3 – “In My Father’s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you, for I go to prepare a place for you. If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also.”
* John 17:24 – “Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am, so that they may see My glory which You have given Me.”
* Acts 3:19-21 – “Therefore repent and return, so that your sins may be wiped away, in order that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord; and that He may send Jesus, the Christ appointed for you, whom heaven must receive until the period of restoration of all things about which God spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets from ancient time.”
* Romans 5:2 – “We exult in hope of the glory of God.”

* Romans 8:18 – “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us.”
* Romans 8:21 – “The creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God.”  
* Romans 8:23 – “We ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body.”
* Romans 8:29 – “Those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son.”
* Romans 8:30 – “These whom He predestined, He also called. And these whom He called, He also justified, and these whom He justified, He also glorified.”

* Romans 15:10 – “Rejoice, O Gentiles, with His people (the Jewish people).”
* Romans 15:12 – “There shall come the root of Jesse, and He who arises to rule over the Gentiles – in Him shall the Gentiles hope.”
* 1 Corinthians 3:8 – “He who plants and he who waters are one; but each will receive his own reward according to his own labor.”
* 1 Corinthians 6:2 – “Do you not know that we will judge the world?”
* 1 Corinthians 6:3 – “Do you not know that we will judge angels?”

* 1 Corinthians 15:22-25 – “For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, after that those who are Christ’s at His coming, then comes the end, when He hands over the kingdom to the God and Father, when He has abolished all rule and all authorly and power. For He must reign until He has put all His enemies under His feet.”
* 1 Corinthians 15:28 – “When all things are subjected to Him, then the Son Himself also will be subjected to the One who subjected all things to Him, so that God may be all in all.”
* 1 Corinthians 15:40-42 – “So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown a perishable body, it is raised an imperishable body; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.”
* 1 Corinthians 15:52-53 – “… we will all be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable and we will be changed. For this perishable must put on the imperishable and this mortal must put on immortality.”
* 2 Corinthians 4:14 – “… He who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and will present us with you.”

* 2 Corinthians 4:17 – “Momentary light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison.”
* 2 Corinthians 5:1-2 – “If the eternal tent which is our house is torn down, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands… our dwelling from heaven.”
* 2 Corinthians 5:8 – “We are of good courage, I say, and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord.”
* Ephesians 1:4-5 – “He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him.”
* Ephesians 1:9-11 – “He made known to us the mystery of His will… with a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of the times, that is, the summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things on the earth. In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose.”

* Ephesians 1:13-14 – “Having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is given as a pledge of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of God’s own possession.”
* Ephesians 2:5-7 – “But God, because of His mercy… made us alive with Christ… and seated us with Him in the heavenly places with Christ so that in the ages to come He might show us the surpassing riches of His grace.”  
*Ephesians 2:10 – “We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.
* Philippians 1:21 – “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.”
* Philippians 2:9-11 – “God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on the earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

* Philippians 3:21 – “Our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory.”
* Colossians 1:4 – “We heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and the love which you have for all the saints, because of the hope laid up for you in heaven.”
* Colossians 3:4 – “When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory.”
* Colossians 3:23-24 – “Whatever you do, do your work heartily, as for the Lord rather than for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance.”
* 1 Thessalonians 2:18 – “Who is our hope or joy or crown of exultation? Is it not even you in the presence of our Lord Jesus at His coming? For you are our glory and joy.”

* 1 Thessalonians 4:17 – “We who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord.”
* 1 Thessalonians 5:9-10 – “God has not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, so that whether we are awake or asleep, we will live together with Him.”
* 2 Thessalonians 1:10 – “… when He comes to be glorified in His saints on that day, and to be marveled at among all who have believed.”
* Hebrews 12:22-24 – “You have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to myriads of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant…”
* 1 Peter 1:3-5 – “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who… has caused us to born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.”

* 1 Peter 1:13 – “Fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”
* 1 Peter 4:13 – “To the degree that you share the sufferings of Christ, keep on rejoicing, so that also at the revelation of His glory you may rejoice with exultation.”
* 1 Peter 5:10 – “After you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself perfect, confirm, strengthen and establish you.”
* 1 John 3:2 – “Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is.”
* Revelation 1:6 – “He has made us to be a kingdom, priests to His God and Father – to Him be the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen.”

* Revelation 2:26 – “He who overcomes, and he who keeps my deeds until the end, to him I will give authority over the nations.”
* Revelation 5:10 – “You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to our God; and they will reign upon the earth.”
* Revelation 5:13 – “To Him who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb, be blessing and honor and glory and dominion forever and ever.”
* Revelation 7:12 – “Amen, blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might, be to our God forever and ever. Amen.”
* Revelation 7:14-17 – “These are the ones who come out of the great tribulation… that are before the throne of God, and they serve Him day and night in His temple and He who sits on the throne will spread His tabernacle over them. They will hunger no longer, nor thirst anymore, nor will the sun beat down on them… for the Lamb in the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and will guide them to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe every tear from their eyes.”

* Revelation 11:15 – “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ, and He will reign forever and ever.”
* Revelation 15:4 – “Who will not fear, O Lord, and glorify Your name? For You alone are holy; for all the nations will come and worship before You.”
* Revelation 19:7-8 – “Let us rejoice and be glad and give the glory to Him, for the marriage of the Lamb has come and His bride has made herself ready. It was given to her to clothe herself in fine linen, bright and clean; for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints.”
* Revelation 20:6 – “Blessed and holy is the one who has a part in the first resurrection; over these the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ and will reign with Him for a thousand years.”
* Revelation 20:10 – “The devil who deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are also. They will be tormented day and night forever and ever.”

* Revelation 20:14-15 – “Death and hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.”
* Revelation 21:1-4 – “I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and there is no longer any sea. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, ‘Behold the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them, and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away.’”
* Revelation 21:5-7 – “Behold, I am making all things new. It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give to the one who thirsts from the spring of the water of life without cost. He overcomes will inherit these things, and I will be his God and he will be My Son.”
* Revelation 21:10-11 – “He carried me away in the Spirit to a great and high mountain, and showed me the holy city, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, having the glory of God. Her brilliance was like a very costly stone, as a stone of crystal-clear jasper.”

* Revelation 21:16 – “The city is laid out as a square, and its length is as great as the width; and he measured the city with the rod, fifteen hundred miles.”
* Revelation 21:22-25 – “I saw no temple in it, for the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. And the city has no need of the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God has illuminated it, and its lamp is the Lamb. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it. In the daytime (for there will be no night there) its gates will never be closed; and they will bring the glory and honor of the nations into it.”
* Revelation 22:2-5 – “On either side of the river was the tree of life, bearing twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit every month; and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. There will no longer be any curse; and the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and His bond-servants will serve Him; they will see His face, and His name will be on their foreheads. And there will no longer be any light; and they will not have need of the light of a lamp nor the light of the sun, because the Lord will illumine them and they will reign forever and ever.”
* Revelation 22:12 – “Behold, I am coming soon, and My reward is with Me, to render to every man according to what he has done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.”

To sum up, our great and glorious hope speaks of being with Jesus, seeing Him in all His glory, loving and worshiping God, being in our heavenly home, being like Jesus, being immortal, being glorified and blessed, eternal life, eternal purpose, being with believers, being rewarded, receiving an inheritance, being in a new heaven and on a new earth, serving in God’s kingdom, and reigning with Jesus Christ.

Hope is extremely important. But sadly, many Christians are lacking in hope, are missing a key ingredient for worship, growth, and joy. May this not be true of you. “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you will abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit” (Rom. 15:13). “I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints.” Eph. 1:18

From the Old Testament:

“Even after my skin is destroyed, yet from my flesh I shall see God, whom I myself shall behold” (Job 19:26-27). “You will make known to me the path of life; in Your presence is fulness of joy; in Your right hand are pleasures forever” (Ps. 16:11). “Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever” (Ps. 23:6). “All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nations will worship before You. For the kingdom is the Lord’s and He rules over the nations” (Ps. 24:27-28). “God is the King of all the earth; sing praises with a skillful psalm. God reigns over the nations, God sits on His holy throne” (Ps. 47:7-8). “Let the nations be glad and sing for joy; for You will judge the peoples with uprightness and guide the nations on the earth” (Ps. 67:4). “God blesses us, that all the ends of the earth may fear Him” Ps. 67:7

“How blessed are those who dwell in Your house! They are ever praising You” (Ps. 84:4). “The Lord reigns, He is clothed with majesty; the Lord has clothed Himself with strength; indeed, the world is firmly established, it will not be moved” (Ps. 93:1). “Ascribe to the Lord, O families of the peoples, ascribe to the Lord the glory of His name” (Ps. 96:7). “The Lord reigns, let the earth rejoice; let the many islands be glad” (Ps. 97:1). “Let the sea roar and all it contains, the world and those who dwell in it. Let the rivers clap their hands, let the mountains sing together for joy” (Ps. 98:7-8). “This will be written for the generation to come… that men may tell of the name of the Lord in Zion and His praise in Jerusalem, when the peoples are gathered together, and the kingdoms to serve the Lord” (Ps. 102:18-22). “Every day I will bless You, and I will praise Your name forever and ever.” Psalm 145:2