What is Hope? 2

Devotional Reading: Remember your promise to me; it is my only hope. Psalms 119:49 NLT

Biblical hope isn’t optimism -an over exaggerated hope, neither is it pessimism – a forlorn hope. Biblical hope lives far beyond these categories. They are weak by comparison as they are based on our strengths, needs, and preferences.

Where then is our hope from; where is it founded? It isn’t based in our humanity. It is articulated and framed in the scriptures – in God’s word, his revelation of himself, to us. Our hope has its fountain head in what God says, what he promises. If God promises something, and God cannot lie, then we have a sure hope it will be fulfilled. It is this sort of hope that brightens the future, no matter how dark the present.

As a biblical example of hope in operation we need search no further than Abraham. He was made a promise that for all intents and purposes was impossible and could have appeared cruel. (Genesis 12:1-3)

Faith was seen in that Abraham acted towards the promise being fulfilled, even if at times it was less than perfect obedience. He is a father in more ways than one. His active faith was motivated and sustained by hope – hope in the promise. Did he struggle? Of course. “In hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been told.” (Romans 4:18 ESV)

Against all normal hope, against natural probability, he believed in the hope that God gave him in the promise. His hope was grounded on the divine promise he would have a son in his old age. This is not hope in hope but hope in God the Word, hope in what he has promised. There is a world of difference, and a child to prove it.

Prayer and Confession
May God, the fountain of hope, fill me to overflowing with uncontainable joy and perfect peace as I trust in him. And may the power of the Holy Spirit continually surround my life with his super-abundance until I radiate with hope!
Amen.

Further Reading: Romans 4:17-23