Hope

The other day I realised that the only reason we have hope is because of God.  Everyone has hope for something or in something, but a hope that gives us confidence and peace is a hope that results from something that is constant.

What is hope?

Hope according to an online dictionary, hope is a feeling or desire of expectation and desire for something particular to happen. Hope is also a feeling of trust. 

Just to go round in circles for a bit, when we have hope we're trusting in something, (an object, an event, something happening) or in someone, (a person or God).  When we place our trust in something or someone we are not always guaranteed that that thing won't break or that person won't be faithful and then leave us broken, hopeless and hurt.  There is however one person who is faithful no matter what and that person is God. He is ALWAYS faithful. Hebrews 6:13- 19 says

"When God made his promise to Abraham, since there was no one greater for him to swear by, he swore by himself, ¹⁴ saying, “I will surely bless you and give you many descendants.” ¹⁵ And so after waiting patiently, Abraham received what was promised. ¹⁶ People swear by someone greater than themselves, and the oath confirms what is said and puts an end to all argument. ¹⁷ Because God wanted to make the unchanging nature of his purpose very clear to the heirs of what was promised, he confirmed it with an oath. ¹⁸ 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. ¹⁹ We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure.

The highlighted section is the who reason we're able to have hope, it's because God can't lie and he is unchangeable. He is always faithful, meaning we can be secure in Him and have peace.

To sum up my thinking...

We have hope because of God and who he is. Without him we don't have hope.

The really scary thing is that there are MILLIONS of people out there who are either not a Christian or haven't heard about Jesus. Where are they placing their hope? In other Gods? Idols? Things? People? Do they even have peace and confidence in what they are hoping for in the future?  Are they getting hurt because they are let down by all these things?

This kind of encourages me to go out and tell the world about Jesus - to shine my light so that people can come to know Jesus and to discover the wonderful peace that comes from placing our hope in Him and not people or things.

xKx