1 Peter 1:13 Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
Our hope aims toward the future. But what about the future are we to hope toward? Grace. There waits for us more grace. Grace was ours of ancient days, grace was ours when we believed, grace is ours today and tomorrow.
But there waits for us a greater revelation of grace, an unfolding of grace, an experience of grace. When Jesus returns, we receive the greatest grace of all. Completed redemption, sanctification, health, wealth, friendship, contentment, peace, our final salvation, and above them all, Jesus himself, in person.
This is why we look forward; he comes and changes and renews all things. The world no longer winds down in entropy, our bodies no longer grow frail with time, we no longer grow distant from loved ones, then our minds will work clearly, our conscience be entirely unburdened, our love will flow freely, his salvation has come.
And it is on this, the grace he brings when he returns, that we are to set our hope fully.
What then should our hope not be in here? We should not fix our hope on getting better from this or that illness, only to get worse again, for then, when Christ is revealed, we get entirely better. We should not set our hope on worldly wealth, for no sooner does it arrive than it leaves again. Nor should we set our hope on worldly success--our jobs done well, our popularity rising--for every worldly success achieved here is finally undone, in a sense, there. Nor should we set our hope on people and glad times with them, for here they also will come to disappoint us.
This is why our hope should be fully, FULLY, set on the grace that Jesus will bring to us when he returns. No other object or event is worthy of our full hope. Nothing else can bear the weight of our hope. Only Jesus and his return with more grace is the right object of our hope. For when Jesus returns, then he will make everything right.
Lord, let my hope be set fully, not on minor intermediate, transient goals, but let my hope be set fully in you and your grace upon your return. Only there is my hope well spent and finally established.