There is a Hope

“Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.” Romans 5:5.

Now before I go on, there is a difference in the definition of hope and a Biblical definition of hope.  Hope used in common day language is a wishful thinking with anticipation.  But the Biblical definition of Hope is based upon a certainty that comes from the promises of God and His word.  Biblical hope has a clarity and certainty while world hope has an uncertainty and it is not as clear.

In the past few months, I’ve come across something that truly disturbs my heart. I’ve met a few different people who have given up and have no hope in life. Giving up often is a sign of not just the absence of worldly hope but the absence of Biblical Hope. My heart breaks when I see people that God loves who have no desire to know Him. Their hopes were on worldly things and when those things came crashing down, they had nowhere else to turn.  

Max Lucado says, “you are never without hope because you are never without prayer.”  His point is as long as you are living there is still time to communicate with the one True God and find the beginning of hope, Real Hope!  I cannot force or manipulate a person who doesn’t know Christ to follow Him. All I can do is present the Truth of God’s Word and share how He has changed my life.  In the end I can take them to the book of Romans where Paul reminds us, “Hope does not disappoint.”

To a world filled with disappointment in life, could this one verse show them that there is a different hope, a Living Hope that can forever change their disappointment to deliverance. There is still time for any lost person to find hope, as long as they are breathing. God’s hope is available the question is are you accepting.

 “Optimism is a wish without warrant; Christian hope is a certainty, guaranteed by God himself. Optimism reflects ignorance as to whether good things will ever actually come. Christian hope expresses knowledge that every day of his life, and every moment beyond it, the believer can say with truth, on the basis of God's own commitment, that the best is yet to come.” J.I. Packer