7.1 Give My People Hope

© 2018 Christ Revealed Bible Institute

Give My people hope.

In a lifetime of walking with the Lord Jesus, those words are the only thing I have ever heard Him tell me to do. That was in February of 1998; if I could take you to the place and the season of my life, you would understand. After twenty-two years of seeking to know Him with all my heart and at great cost, I had NO hope at all.

“Give My people hope.”

That was the lowest point in my Christian life. I did not even know what hope was. Yet now, twenty years later, I want to extend to you the one gift I am able to give you.

I want to give you HOPE.

But what is this hope? Hope, for me, is very specific and very Biblical. My hope is the full answer to the deepest desire of my heart.
To be filled with Jesus? To be just like Him. To be with Him. To stand by His side as He comes in His glory. To have him, at that moment, acknowledge you as His own. To know that, in His triumph, He is counting on you. To hear Him say, “Well done, My friend, faithful and true.”

Is there anything else?

Three Big Promises.
I am writing this letter to you based on an assumption I have about you. I suspect that, on this matter, you and I are the same. For us, nothing else exists.

“Now wait a minute, Yordy,” you are probably thinking, “what exactly are you claiming when you say you are able to give me hope?”

Let me make a very bold promise to you.

I promise you three things. If you commit yourself to the Biblical Studies program at Christ Revealed Bible Institute and faithfully complete all the courses offered, I promise you three things.

1. You will KNOW what it means to be one with the Lord Jesus Christ.
2. You will KNOW what it means to be just like the Lord Jesus, to walk as He walks.
3. You will KNOW what it means to hear Him say to you, “Well done, My friend, faithful and true.”

You have to know that making such a bold claim would be entirely beyond me – unless – I knew with all certainty that the Lord Jesus (not me) will give you these three things through the time you spend with Him through these studies.

It is He who is one with us; it is He who walks with us; it is He who is faithful and true.

You see, this is what I did not know through all those years of trying and hoping and always falling short. I did not know that Jesus is not only Savior, but Himself Salvation. I did not know that Jesus Himself is my life.

I can make these promises to you on the very simple basis that Jesus is all these things to me. I live and walk now in all I had ever hoped to be. I live inside the Lord Jesus Christ and He lives inside of me. I know that it is true – and I want you to know how the same is true of you.

What Must We Know?
The first thing we must know, the first part of our hope to be just like Jesus, is that we are incapable of living the Christian life. But even more than that, our inability to live the Christian life is how God designed us and wonderfully good.

If you could live the Christian life, why would you need Jesus to live it for you? Why would we need God at all?

And the second thing we must know is that we walk every step rooted and grounded IN the love of God, just as Jesus walked. Isn’t that what Jesus said? That of Himself He could do nothing – Jesus could not walk the Christian life. – And that the Father was always WITH Him? If Jesus needed the Father to direct His every step inside of love, are we not the same as He?

So what can this two-year directed Bible study offer to you that Jesus is not already, living inside of you? Absolutely nothing – except this – do you know what is already true? Do you know all the wondrous reality found inside of Jesus alive inside of you?

Here is something else Jesus said. Take My yoke upon you and learn of Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light (Matthew 11:29-30).

What does it mean to “learn of Jesus?” Can we study to know the Lord?

Five Big Things to Learn.
I have been studying to know the Lord, both in the Bible and in every step of human life in this world, for more than forty years. And the joy of learning Christ has only increased and will increase forever. But what is that path into all the hope of our lives? There are five big things we must know in order to know Jesus faithful and true, in order to hear Him say to us, “Welcome, My friend.”

The first thing we must know is God’s heart, His intentions and Purposes. What is God’s motive? What does He want out of this whole thing called creation and human history?

But then we are immediately thrust into a couple of large and somewhat strange questions, things we must know if we are to really understand God’s purpose.

What is God? What is Jesus the Christ?

You see, we have no need to ask who is God, for we already know, God is our Father. And we already know who Jesus is, the One who walked through the gospels and who now lives inside our hearts. But what are they?

I do believe the answers to those questions, entirely from the Bible, will both surprise you and move you to tears and to joy.

Then, after learning the purpose and essence of God, what comes next? Well, what was it that Jesus taught? Then Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom (Matthew 9:35).

We must know the Kingdom. We must know that unfolding of God Himself out into the patterns of all of His creation.

The disciples spent three and a half years in Jesus’ school as they learned the Kingdom of God from Him. I cannot teach you as they learned, certainly, but I know Someone who can. And He is inside of you.

Learning the Kingdom, however, leaves us out of breath, in fact “Kingdom teaching” has been, so very often, the thing that takes our hope away. How could we ever live up to these things? How could we ever cast-off sin and death and set creation free?

The fourth big thing we must learn, then, is the Covenant, this Bond between us and God that we call the Lord Jesus Christ. How are we connected to God, and how is God connected to us? What, exactly, is written upon our hearts as the very writing of Christ?

What is our heart that it could contain the very Christ of God?

The final big thing we must learn, then, is LIFE. What is life? How do we then live?

And here we discover that life, the life of Jesus in and through us is something the Bible calls the Church. Life together – family, fathers and mothers, sisters and brothers, children and old folks, walking together, loving one another with a pure heart fervently.

“Learn of Me.”
As we learn of Jesus, what will we be learning? The answer to that question will only increase forever. Yet every journey must begin; I invite you to walk with me and with other precious brothers and sisters, if you would, on our path home.

Go to the Christ Revealed Bible Institute, you can find it here, www.christrevealedbible.institute.  

Click on “Register Now” at the top and fill out the form as your first step into this journey of studying to know the Lord Jesus Christ alive in you.

Christ Revealed Bible Institute is a gathering together of a very select group of individuals, specifically those who have seen in their Bibles the words, “Christ lives in your hearts through faith,” and who desire, with all their hearts, to know this Jesus alive inside of them.

You want to know the Bible for yourself, and to be satisfied in your own heart that the knowledge coming into you from Bible verses is God’s real meaning and intention.

Post Script.
There is one more thing I can promise that you will know as you complete this journey with us. – Consider your own heart. –  

You may have been taught that your heart is evil; you may have been taught never to trust your heart. Yet what does it mean that Christ lives IN your heart? And what does God mean when He says, “I have found a man after My own heart”?

The hidden secret of the gospel of Jesus Christ is that the Father Himself desires to place His own heart – there – inside of yours. That the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them (John 17:26b).

As you complete this program, you will share heart with God.

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