LEARNING DAILY

Psalm 71:5, “For you, O Lord, are my hope, my trust, O Lord, from my youth.”

1 Peter 1:3, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to His great mercy, He has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.”

Hebrews 11:1, “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”

Hope was the subject of the message given this weekend by Pastor Ed Newton. That is why there are three verses with the word hope blackened for emphasis. Hope has been written about in this blog before. But I was not as efficient as Pastor Newton was.

Hope is used too many times when we “wish” something to occur. It is used too often as a response, “I hope so”. But the word hope when used in Scripture is different. The Hebrew word for hope is “tikvah” which means woven together as in a cord or a rope to hold on to; it is the confident expectation that your situation can change. Go back and read the definition Pastor gave and notice the words confident expectation. Do you see how that is different from wishing it will happen?

Pastor gave detail for this confidence. Because Jesus Christ rose from the grave, we can have hope because He is alive! It is one thing to hope (wish) we are saved, that we have eternal life after death; it is another thing to have a confident expectation of our salvation because Jesus Christ rose from the dead as He said He would. The reason for the Believer’s hope is that Jesus Christ is alive. He ascended to the right hand of God the Father and is preparing a place for every Believer as they walk the narrow way into His kingdom. Because He is alive, every person who believes Him will be saved, changed and be resurrected.

I don’t believe people can survive without hope. Sure, people can exist, but hope keeps each of us moving forward through painful experiences and fear of what lies ahead. We live in a world where famine, warfare, poverty, disease, terrorism and fear of virus-linked outbreaks are always before us; we need a “living hope”! Ephesians 2:12 tells us that those without Jesus Christ have no hope. I would not want to wake up each day without the hope there is in Jesus. By the power of God’s word and the Holy Spirit living within us our thoughts, words, and actions are changed so we hang on to the “living hope” instead of fearing today or what tomorrow might bring.

Hope (Tikvah) in Jesus Christ is what I hold on to each day. I am able to do so because “Hope is a promise” (Pastor Newton). “Because He lives, He keeps His promise!” Jesus is our present hope and our future hope (from the Listener Guide). His promise to His faithful followers is to be with them through every circumstance they face as they walk on the narrow way (Jeremiah 29:11) and that all things work together for good for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose (Romans 8:28). Those are thoughts and promises we can grasp and hang onto as we go through our daily lives and face trials and circumstances. It makes me want to tie that rope (hope) around my waste and hang on to it with both hands as tightly as I can. It is an anchor for me that is certainly tight and secure!