GroshLink

You may remember hope as being a significant theme in my presenation at Penn last week, see Praise God for His work at Penn on Friday night!  So, it's probably not suprising that I recommend you join me in prayerfully reflecting upon the below selection from Scot McKnight's post Where is our hope? (and then link over to Where is our hope? to read the rest of his excellent piece on the relationship of hope to Election Day):

Our hope is in the gospel of God that creates God’s people. God’s gospel-shaped mission creates a new people of God. In fact, the temptation of good Protestants to skip from Genesis 3 (the Fall) to Romans 3 (salvation) must be resisted consciously. We need to soak up how God’s gospel-shaped work always and forever creates a gospel people. The first thing God does with Abraham is to form a covenant people, Israel, and Jesus’ favorite word was “kingdom,” and Paul was a church-obsessed theologian-missionary. Herein lies the challenge at election time. We are tempted to divide the USA into the good and the bad and to forget that the gospel has folks on both sides of political lines. Even more: we are tempted to think that the winners of the election are those who are blessed by God when the blessing of God is on God’s people. God’s gospel-powered mission creates a new people, the church, where we are to see God’s mission at work. Therein lies our hope.