SCRIPTURE: Acts 28:17-22
“It is because of the hope of Israel that I am bound with this chain.” (Acts 28:20)
The people of Israel were a people of hope.
From their origins as oppressed slaves, they hoped for freedom, land, peace and prosperity.
They had moments they were close, but again and again it slipped from their hands.
Yet they trusted God’s promise, that ONE DAY a Messiah would come to set things right.
For them, and for the world, for all nations would be blessed in this Messiah.
Paul believes that Jesus is the fulfillment of all Israel’s hope.
Jesus is the appointed and anointed King, come to restore God’s kingdom.
What Paul does not mention is that it is the people of Israel that put him in chains.
It is because the leaders of Israel did not accept Paul’s hope of Israel, that he is now in Rome.
It’s sad to think that the people of the promise can see it’s fulfillment, and miss it.
When ritual and religion blind them to the realization of their hopes.
To have everything, yet miss out on Jesus, is to miss out on everything.
For Jesus – not religion, not church, not christianity – is the hope of the world.
Yet I wonder, how many today, even faithful church-goers, are missing it?
Our world needs Jesus, but I sense that the church is holding this hope in chains.
Getting to know Jesus is the key to entering this hope, this life.
Thankfully, no chain can hold Him back!
What do you sense the Lord saying to you?
PRAYER
Lord, break the chains of religion in me, in us, so that the many people desperate for hope will look past the church aand christianity and see You!