| HOPE – Definition: A feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen |
I hope for a lot of things. I hope that the coffee that I’m drinking right now will kick in soon so that I don’t feel like the walking dead. I hope that it will snow on Christmas Day. I hope that I can get my master bathroom painted before company comes next week and that I will get all of my baking and shopping done.
Every day there are things that we “hope” for. We throw that word around lightly for things that we “wish” will be or happen. Some of them will become a reality and some will just be dreams.
But because of Jesus, I can experience hope at a whole new level. Not wishful thinking but a “just knowing” and trusting completely in the promises that He made to us.
“A strong and confident expectation”. That is my revised definition of hope from the perspective of my faith. A hope that means “I KNOW that this will occur”, not just “I believe this could be a reality.”
A friend and I had a lengthy conversation about heaven the other day. From the time I was a child, I believed in heaven. Much of that stemmed from a childlike faith. As I got older, that faith was tested by time and circumstance and still I believed in heaven. But not until I watched my child leave this world to go there, did I fully embrace the undeniable reality of heaven. I don’t just believe it exists, I know it. Part of me is already there.
Heaven is a promise from God. It is a guarantee because I accept the gift that Jesus gave me when He died for me. When He came back to life for me. He’s saving me a spot. Not maybe. Not hopefully. He IS!
There are so many promises from God that we can put our hope in. That we can know for sure are facts:
His LOVE…Jeremiah 31:3 – The LORD appeared to us in the past, saying: “I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with unfailing kindness.”
His PRESENCE…Hebrews 13:5 – “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.”
His PROVISION…Philippians 4:13 – And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus.
His INTIMATE KNOWLEDGE OF US…Psalm 139:13-18 – For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. How precious to me are your thoughts,God! How vast is the sum of them! Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand— when I awake, I am still with you.
The list of promises goes on and on. And if I trust the God I love, then I will have nothing but confidence that such statements are truth. His love and all that it offers and promises are facts, whether I can see them today or not. Sometimes I will have to wait, but isn’t that the point of hope? Believing without seeing…Like it says in Romans 8:23-25 – And we believers also groan, even though we have the Holy Spirit within us as a foretaste of future glory, for we long for our bodies to be released from sin and suffering. We, too, wait with eager hope for the day when God will give us our full rights as his adopted children, including the new bodies he has promised us. We were given this hope when we were saved. If we already have something, we don’t need to hope for it. But if we look forward to something we don’t yet have, we must wait patiently and confidently.
Jesus offered and promised heaven. Not just for my future, but for my now. Because I know that this planet is not my final destination, I can feel encouraged. Because I am anticipating something greater, I can face difficult times with hope. Hope in fact, not just possibility. With all the confidence in the world. Hebrews 6:18-19 – God did this so that, by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to take hold of the hope set before us may be greatly encouraged. We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure.
I “hope” you have hope today 🙂 Hope beyond dreams and wishful thinking. A hope that “just knows” beyond the shadow of a doubt, that God is true to His word and will do and give everything that He said He would do and give.
Hebrews 13:15 – May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
(Side note: My hope that my coffee would kick in and perk me up did not pan out…it’s gonna be a loooooooooong day…)
