In-Home Devotional

Wednesday April 9, 2008

 Something to Hope In

            It seems that everywhere I turn these days someone is talking about hope.  If you watch the recent election coverage it should become obvious that one of the candidates is running on the message of “hope.”  People from all walks of life are flocking to this man’s side because, I believe, in this always changing and surely uncertain world we want something to hope in.  His official campaign website is even titled www.hope.net.  Are you catching on here?

            Wikipedia offers this definition for the word hope: Hope is a belief in a positive outcome related to events and circumstances in one's life. Hope implies a certain amount of despair, wanting, wishing, suffering or perseverance — i.e., believing that a better or positive outcome is possible even when there is some evidence to the contrary.  In Romans chapter 8 Paul tells us pointedly that we do not hope for what we already have or what is seen, but for what is to come and what we haven’t yet laid eyes on.  Hope is based upon the realization that even though we’re struggling and suffering now, something better lies ahead.

            The word hope appears many times both in the Old and New Testaments.  It is a theme that is echoed in most every book.  When things are bad the people of God have something, or more precisely someone, to hope in.  The theme of scripture is that we don’t have to place our hope in empty promises or what might be, we hope in what the God of truth has promised us will be.  God is compared to a mighty warrior, a rock, a firm foundation.  When we place our hope in Him we can have the steadfast assurance that we will not be disappointed.

            If your eyes have been open at all over the past several months you may have seen in another human being the intense longing and desire to have some thing worth hoping in.  I don’t think for a second that longing can be fulfilled in our next presidential hopeful, or any other mortal for that matter.  Real hope is found only in the Lord, but real hope is exactly what people are searching for; desperately I might add.

            I think it’s possible that through God’s grace something powerful has recently been revealed to us.  I have many times, myself, despaired and felt like there is just no way of reaching this self-centered, self indulgent world.  Maybe the Lord has revealed to us the way in which His creation can be reached.  It seems as if the answer could be wrapped up in one word.  Hope.  Are you ready to share it?  We are surrounded by starving people, and for once they realize their intense hunger and need.  We have been given the Bread of Life.  Let’s share it liberally.

Ephesians 2:12-13

Remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.