Lessons In Truth - Lesson 9 - Annotation 4
What is our "hope of glory" (Col. 1:27)?
4. Our "hope of glory" is the Christ Spirit within ourselves. "Christ in you, the hope of glory" (Col. 1:27).
One of the meanings of the word hope, according to Webster's Dictionary, is "desire accompanied with expectation of obtaining what is desired, or belief that it is obtainable." One of the definitions given for the word glory is: "height of prosperity or splendor," so we come to see that our "hope of glory" means in practical language, our expectation of the fulfillment of all good. Certainly only God's very own Spirit in us as the Christ could give us the assurance of all good in our life. God is life, love, power, strength, abundance, so His presence in us (as the Christ) is the source of these qualities or ideas that will manifest in our mind, body, and affairs.
Surely there is indeed no greater "mystery which hath been hid for ages and generations . . . which is Christ in you, the hope of glory (Col. 1:26, 27). Throughout the ages man has searched in the outer for God and for his good, yet the impelling longing within has kept him searching until he awakens to the glorious realization that God is not outside himself, but within as a living Presence. When this occurs we come to know that our only "hope of glory" lies in our understanding that only from and through the Christ within can we know true satisfaction and fulfillment; this idea is revolutionary as well as transforming.
Before divine ideas can be effectively "worked out" in our body and our world, we must have faith that God is inherent within us as a living Reality, the only activity at work in our life and affairs. We need to know that God is the power, the Presence, the intelligence within that we can claim and make use of to transform our life. On page 91 our text (Emilie Cady Lessons In Truth 9:3) points out that the longing for God can never be satisfied until the inworking (inner realization of our relation to God) precedes the outworking (the movement of divine ideas in mind, body, and affairs) as emphasized in Annotation 3 of this lesson.
Charles Fillmore asked a friend "Do you know what the most important words in the world are?" When the friend made the remark that she did not know, Charles Fillmore's answer was, "'Christ in you, the hope of glory' -- these are the most important words in the world" (The Story of Unity 212). We know that the importance to each of us lies in the full realization of this statement and in our ability to make practical use of the Truth it contains.
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Preceding Entry: How does the intellect work with intuition?
Following Entry: What is our key to power?
