Like we said, hope is trust in God for the things we expect in future. Beyond the unseen things that the believer hopes for, God is also our hope. The Psalmist writes thus: “Why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God, for I shall yet praise him for the help of his countenance” (Psalms 42:5 NKJV). The ground of our hope for the future is God; he is our hope.
Nicky Gumbel writes, “Hope in God, through Jesus, is one of the central messages of the New Testament. Without Christ, people have no hope. However, the shed blood of Christ brings believers back to their Creator and gives them the hope they once lacked (Eph. 2:12 – 13). Paul prayed that God would give spiritual understanding to the believers in Ephesus, that the eyes of their hearts may be enlightened, allowing them to know the hope to which he has called them — “the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people” (Eph. 1:18). People may hope in many things, but there is one hope that all Christians have in common, the Lord Jesus Christ. It is in him alone that believers find true hope and eternal riches.”
REJOICING IN HOPE
To be sustained by hope, we must accept the circumstances we find ourselves with joy. Habakkuk remained joyful despite the lack of fruitfulness, while he waited in hope for God’s visitation (Hab.3:17-19).
Paul exhorted the Christians in Rome to rejoice and be patient in their tribulations. He exhorts thus, “rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing steadfastly in prayer” (Rom.12:12). Paul and Silas are good examples of those who rejoiced in tribulation when they found themselves in jail. They rejoiced and sang praises to God in their difficulties. No wonder, God intervened to deliver them (Acts 16:16-31).
Clinging to hope in times of danger led Apostle Paul to experience a supernatural turnaround. Paul’s trip to Rome was perhaps the riskiest trip he ever embarked on, at least, the riskiest on the sea. The trip was so stormy that they were in danger of losing their lives. “And because we were exceedingly tempest-tossed, the next day they lightened the ship. On the third day we threw the ship’s tackle overboard with our own hands. Now when neither sun nor stars appeared for many days, and no small tempest beat on us, all hope that we would be saved was finally given up. But after long abstinence from food, then Paul stood in the midst of them and said, “Men, you should have listened to me, and not have sailed from Crete and incurred this disaster and loss. And now I urge you to take [a]heart, for there will be no loss of life among you, but only of the ship. For there stood by me this night an angel of the God to whom I belong and whom I serve, saying, ‘Do not be afraid, Paul; you must be brought before Caesar; and indeed God has granted you all those who sail with you’” (Verse 18-24).
“Biblical hope” as John Piper wrote, “is not a mere desire for something good to happen. It is a confident expectation and desire for something good in the future. Biblical hope has moral certainty in it. When the word says, “Hope in God!” it does not mean, “Cross your fingers.” It means, to use the words of William Carey, “Expect great things from God.”
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