Prisoners Of Hope
Photo by engin akyurt, from Unsplash. More photography can be found here: https://unsplash.com/photos/oX7JO23EUTY
Have you ever been imprisoned in fear, doubt, need, desperation, or hopelessness?
We can be imprisoned by these feelings and by our deficits and needs.
We can also trust that we have a King who is coming and we can be prisoners of hope.
Do you know that you can be a prisoner of hope?
God will conquer all our enemies and God will usher in his perfect peace and reign.
This is the God of peace Zechariah was pointing to when he said, “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king is coming to you; righteous and having salvation is he, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.” (Zechariah 9:9, ESV).
Kings who entered into a city on a donkey did so as a sign of peace and humility. God our King enters into the gates of the Holy City—and the gates of our lives—to usher in his salvation and his peaceful kingdom.
God spoke hope through the Prophet Zechariah, saying, “I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the war horse from Jerusalem; and the battle bow shall be cut off, and he shall speak peace to the nations; his rule shall be from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth. As for you also, because of the blood of my covenant with you, I will set your prisoners free from the waterless pit. Return to your stronghold, O prisoners of hope; today I declare that I will restore to you double.” (Zechariah 9:10-12, ESV).
God will defeat all our enemies. God is our stronghold and our ever present help in our times of weakness.
God brings his peace and will speak peace to the nations. God’s peaceful rule and reign will cover over all the earth.
God will keep his promises.
God will set us free from our deepest and darkest pits of this life. God will make us prisoners of hope in him.
God will rescue us and will restore to us double.
May we take comfort in our God of peace, who comes to make peace, and to bring peace, and may we be prisoners of hope as we await God’s two-fold restoration.
In Christ alone, Robbie
A Prayer For Prisoners: “O God, you forgive when we deserve punishment, and in your wrath you remember mercy: We humbly ask you, of your goodness, to comfort all prisoners [and especially those who are condemned to die]. Give them a right understanding of themselves, and of your promises, that trusting wholly in your mercy, they may not place their confidence anywhere but in you. Relieve the distressed; deliver the innocent; bring the guilty to repentance; and as you alone bring light out of darkness, and good out of evil, grant that by the power of your Holy Spirit they may be set free from the chains of sin, and brought to newness of life; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.” (#60, Book of Common Prayer, 2019).
Photo by engin akyurt, from Unsplash. More photography can be found here: https://unsplash.com/photos/oX7JO23EUTY
