Day 8 – What Is Living in Hope?

“I would have lost heart, unless I had believed; That I would see the goodness of the Lord. In the land of the living. Wait on the Lord; Be of good courage, And He shall strengthen your heart; Wait, I say, on the Lord!” Psalms 27:13-14 (NKJV).

Biblically speaking, hope is confidence that something will happen, even though it has not happened yet. It is very similar to faith, when we are born into the family of God, we are given a living hope. There are many people today who are hopeless. There are other people who are very optimistic. They look around them and see the beauty of creation and are filled with awe. They look for the best in others and try to help their fellow man; they try to make the world a better place, and in many cases succeed. They are confident that, in spite of it all, everything will turn out all right one way of the other. However, this is not a “living hope” because it is based on unfounded optimism. Apart from divine intervention, things will not turn out all right. Ultimately, every person on earth will die and will face judgment; for those apart from Jesus Christ, it will not turn out well. So, some people are hopeless; some are hopeful, but they have no reason to be; and some have a living hope, that is, a hope that is founded in the reality of the promises of God. “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. For by it the elders obtained a good testimony. By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible” Hebrews 11:1-3 (NKJV).

God accepts responsibility because he has a bigger perspective than any human. He can see what we can’t see. And he loves each of us for our potential to do the great things he has planned for us, regardless of our hang-ups. God isn’t going to compare you with anybody else. He made you to be you. God is the basis of hope because of his known character, his past deeds of salvation, and his covenant with Israel. You are his masterpiece. He’s looking at how you use your spiritual gifts, talents, and abilities. And he’s going to help you reach your unique potential. You were shaped by God for a great purpose, the hope of glory is the fulfillment of God’s promise to restore us and all creation. This hope is not a wishful thought, but the confident, expectant, joyful knowledge that we are being changed by God and will one day see Christ face to face, having been conformed to His image. Hope allows you too truly be you. The Bible talks about Christians become new creations in Christ. You get a total, fresh clean start. Your sins have been forgiven, covered, and hidden, Jesus wipes the slate clean, you become a new person. You get a new heart with a new mind you think and act and live differently because you have been changed. One of the ways you know a person has been born again to a living hope, is their lives begin to change. “Thus says the Lord: “Cursed is the man who trusts in man; And makes flesh his strength, Whose heart departs from the Lord. For he shall be like a shrub in the desert, And shall not see when good comes, But shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, In a salt land which is not inhabited. “Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, And whose hope is the Lord” Jeremiah 17:5-7 (NKJV).

Hope is both a motivator and a destination at the same time. It is what gets us up every day to work in jobs we sometimes disdain. We often only have a glimpse of this hope before we fall back into the mundane and day-to-day grind. Our ultimate hope is Jesus Christ because He fulfills both the daily process by living in us and He also invites us to an eternity with Him. He is the ultimate hope, and a person who does not have this hope often pursues the wrong goals and outcomes. Having an attitude of hope will sustain and motivate us to make our lives count in eternity. We know that the Lord is in charge, and we know the end of the story. We can only find this hope when we come to the end of our resources and our fleshly desires, which is called dying to self and replace them with “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” Worldly hope is wishful thinking, a feeling that what is wanted can be had or that events will turn out for the best, such as the hope of winning. This hope is based on a person or thing in which expectations are centered: The medicine was her last hope. This hope places trust in or relies upon the finite and natural. Biblical hope is a confident assurance. This hope is the reason for our faith, for our life. Hope is tied to a person, object or idea. This hope is based on the infinite and supernatural. “The mystery which has been hidden from ages and from generations, but now has been revealed to His saints. To them God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles: which is Christ in you, the hope of glory” Colossians 1:26-27 (NKJV).