Articles
Word Of The Week: Hope
Sometimes we use the word “hope” to refer to something that won’t likely happen: “I hope I win the Publisher’s Clearinghouse Sweepstakes!” In this context hope is no more than an emotional desire that has little chance of being realized.
But Biblical hope is much more than that: It is confident expectation concerning future blessings promised by God. Paul lived “in hope of eternal life which God, who cannot lie, promised before time began” (Titus 1:2). Later in that epistle, he says that Christians are “looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ” (2:13).
The foundation for our expectation of eternal life is that we have been redeemed “with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish” (I Pet. 1:19), and after His sacrifice God “raised Him from the dead and gave Him glory.” Thus our faith and hope are in God (1:21).
Our hope is based not on a philosophy but real events in history that God brought about in His Son: “This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast” (Heb. 6:19). What is your future anchored to -- or are you drifting?
