“Now may our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, and God our Father, who loved us and gave us eternal comfort and good hope through grace, comfort your hearts and establish them in every good work and word.” (2 Thessalonians 2:16-17)
If our hope is to be solid, it needs a solid foundation. According to the apostle Paul, our hope is given by God through grace. If He were not a God of grace, we would not be a people of hope. We could make wishes and have positive thoughts about the future, but we would not have strong confident hope.
Paul is not speaking about humanity in general, but about “us”. So, to whom has God given this “good hope through grace”? To all people who have yielded to the lordship of Jesus Christ and are resting in the love and fatherly care of God. These are the people who call Jesus “our Lord Jesus Christ” and who call God “our Father”.
They have experienced God’s grace in salvation, as is explained in verses 13-14: “God chose you from the beginning to be saved, through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth. To this He called you through our gospel, so that you may obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.” God’s great work of salvation in our life is the foundation of our “good hope”.
Do you yield to Jesus’ lordship and rest in God’s fatherly care?