What Is Hope?

What is hope?  Is it wanting to get a good grade on a test?  Is it longing for a husband, someone God has been preparing for you for your whole life?  Is it needing a new car?  Is it having deep desires to do something great, creative, and unique?

Wanting something is not hope.  Hope is so much deeper than want.  Hope is more than desires as well.  Desires are so good, we need to dream and long for the future that God has set us on the earth to fulfill.  This the art we are made to live.

But hope?  Hope is different.  It’s integral to needs, wants, and desires.  It’s part faith, part patience, part life breathed by God Himself.

There’s more to come: We continue to shout our praise even when we’re hemmed in with troubles, because we know how troubles can develop passionate patience in us, and how that patience in turn forges the tempered steel of virtue, keeping us alert for whatever God will do next. In alert expectancy such as this, we’re never left feeling shortchanged. Quite the contrary—we can’t round up enough containers to hold everything God generously pours into our lives through the Holy Spirit! – Romans 5:3-5

Hope is a product of perseverance.  The Message bible translates hope in Romans 5 as “alert expectancy.”  Hope comes from passionate patience, knowing God is good and has more for us.  Hope comes from a grateful heart, eyes fixed on Jesus, a mindset focused on the eternal, and strength yielded to the King.

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. – Hebrews 11:1 (NKJV)

Check it out in The Message (Hebrews 11:1-3)

The fundamental fact of existence is that this trust in God, this faith, is the firm foundation under everything that makes life worth living. It’s our handle on what we can’t see. The act of faith is what distinguished our ancestors, set them above the crowd.

By faith, we see the world called into existence by God’s word, what we see created by what we don’t see.

Faith is the substance of things hoped for.  The substance!  Faith is what comes out when we are filled with hope.  Without hope, we cannot have faith.  When we trust that God is good and don’t let our circumstances dictate our feelings and behaviors, we persevere.  We learn patience.

So what is our hope?  Where do we get it?  Yes, hope comes from persevering through trials, but what fuels it?  What motivates us to persevere in the first place?

Jesus is our hope.

Life is hard.  It won’t be easy, there will be heartaches and battles and trials and things that don’t make sense.  This is a given.  We live in a fallen world and there will always be fallen consequences hammering at our doors.  But as children of God, we are called to live in His Kingdom.  Yes, we are here in this world, but we have hope because we are new creations.  We have an inheritance, every spiritual blessing, the Holy Spirit.  We have light to chase away the darkness and perfect love to cast out all fear.  We have a God that is above all things but so very near to us, who we have the right to call Abba.  Papa.  Daddy.  He is more than just a father who cares distantly.  He is a daddy who loves you.  He is always good, always faithful, and always at hand.  He has plans for you, to prosper you and give you a hope and a future.  That hope is Jesus, that future is ordained.  Seek Him first, and all of this will be added to you.  Anything you ask, He wants to fulfill.  That’s the kind of papa He is, the kind of God He is.  He IS love.  Trust Him.  He is the motivation, the fuel, the fire that never burns out.

I think about this little baby, helpless, totally at the mercy of others.  Jesus humbled himself, allowed himself to become this…this baby, this boy, this human being.  He knew the glories of heaven, the ecstasy of constant glory and yet He came here.

Sorry, but YUCK.

Jesus trapped himself in a flesh body that would endure every temptation we have ever faced.  He came into a in a full-of-sin world where hypocrisy and a religious spirit were at an all-time high.  He left the perfect light of heaven to enter a dark, confused world.  From the beginning, He knew that this was coming.  That there was torture and temptation and hardship coming.  Humbled doesn’t even begin to describe what he did.

His desire to redeem us and take away the separation between God and man so that we can have intimacy with Him and fulfill the very first commission…to spread His glory across the earth…astounding!  That redemption and beautiful love is more than enough to cultivate hope in my heart.

Jesus lived a perfect life, was tortured and scarred and became sin so He could send sin to the grave.  This is enough to be thankful for, but then He defeated sin and death and the enemy once and for all by coming back to life.  This is where our hope comes from.  The resurrection into new life.  Our resurrection into new life.

The old has passed away.  New creations in Christ.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead (read the whole chapter in The Message…so good!) – 1 Peter 1:3 (ESV)

There’s one more thing about hope we need to keep in mind.

We are the hope of the world.

How can I say this?  Isn’t Jesus the hope of the world?

Of course!  Of course He is!  Those that believe in Him realize this hope.  We have it, it’s part of us.  But we are co-heirs with Christ.  Joined with Him.  He sits in the heavenlies at the right hand of God, and we are His body here on the earth.  We are His body, and He is the head (Ephesians 2).  So we are Christ on the earth…we are the representation of Him on the earth.  That’s why hope is so vital!  Because it isn’t just about us and being saved, it’s about God’s glory being revealed as we live sold out for Jesus.

Without being awakened to our identities as new creations, the world will be without hope.  We have a responsibility to allow this living hope to bloom in us.

You are the light of the world, a city set high up on a hill.  You represent the hope available for every soul on the earth.  You are the righteousness of God.  You have been qualified by the death and resurrection of our perfect Jesus.  There isn’t one thing you can do to disqualify yourself.  Once you believe, you are set apart for a new purpose, and new life has been breathed into you.  Seeds and words and life resting in your heart, taking root and growing.  It’s all about Jesus and what He did and the victory we have through Him!

You are not a sinner.  You are a saint.  You are the righteousness of God.  You reflect God’s glory.  You are a child of God.  Amazing.  Perfected.  Whole.  This is Truth.

Trusting Jesus and living that truth out is what allows hope to flourish.  Jesus redeems and He is alive.  This is where our hope is found.

We who have run for our very lives to God have every reason to grab the promised hope with both hands and never let go. It’s an unbreakable spiritual lifeline, reaching past all appearances right to the very presence of God. – Hebrews 6:18-19

 

PRAYER

Thank you Lord that you lowered yourself so much to become this helpless baby.  That you did it for us because of the great, perfect love you have for us.  It’s hard to comprehend, but it resonates deep within my heart.  You are so good and generous, God.  Thank you for the gifts, blessings, and love you have given.  Let your light increase in me, let you truth be magnified in me.  Let your glory and love shine out of me.  I want to reflect you.  My hope in you is the anchor of my soul.  You are my hope!  Thank you Jesus, you are so worthy of my adoration and praise.  In your name I pray, AMEN.