Hope in Christ

Hope is what has gotten us through many an impassible obstruction, through many a deep darkness, and through many a moment which seemed unending.  Hope is not always easy to define.  It has never been seen though it has been a part of the human experience since the beginning.  For those of us who trust in God, hope is more than just something conjured up from within the human mind, but something which has become a precious life giving gift and blessing.    

It is God who gives us a hope that is indestructible, overcoming, and everlasting.  When the Apostle Peter wrote his first letter to  a persecuted church, he wrote, "Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you."  ( I Peter 3;15)  Peter did not call these Christians who lived in what we might call hopeless circumstances to remember the creed learned in moments of instructions, or to repeat some Psalm, or even to pray.  Instead, he pointed them to the hope that had come into their lives as a gift from God through the life and death and resurrection of His Son Jesus Christ.  He is our hope.    

Nowhere is our hope more vividly set forth than in I Corinthians 15. It is a powerful reminder that no matter what the difficulty, God is going to get us through it.  Nothing we face in this life has the power to change the reality that in Christ we shall live now and in the life being prepared for us through Christ.  This is our hope.  This is what takes us through the darkness, overcomes the obstacles, and carries us from here into eternity.  We hang on to hope not in desperation, but in faith and trust in the One who has given it.