Around one in 14 U.S. adults (7%) say they didn’t have any source of hope during the problems they faced in 2020. People hope for a better economy, government, or even peace on earth. Anyone who puts their hope in man will be sadly disappointed. The Christian hope is based on a promised future and not on current conditions. The believer’s hope is established in God and not man. The believer’s hope is not subjective wishful thinking but assurance that God will fulfill all that He has promised in the future.

God has provided a new “Living Hope” to all who are born again in Christ. Apart from Christ, we are hopeless people, dead in our sins and trespasses, living apart from the promises of God. “remember that you were at that time separate from Christ, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.” (Ephesians 2:12, NASB95)

The believer’s hope rests in the faithfulness of God to keep His promise until eternity. It is an eschatological hope of ultimate deliverance from death and judgment. The born-again believer focuses on Jesus as their Savior and eternal hope. The believer’s hope is an already and not yet dimension. The born-again believer is saved now and has not yet fully obtained their eternal inheritance that is held in eternity for them.

Living hope is a confident expectation rooted in the finished work of Jesus’ atonement for our sins and will lead us out of darkness into God’s magnificent presence and light.

In His Service,
Pastor Cary