Christian HOPE!

HOPE FOR THE 

LONG AND

SHORT OF IT

by Calvin Burrell

From the "Bible Advocate" - Jan/Feb. 2013 - A PUBLICATION OF THE CHURCH OF GOD, SEVENTH DAY, DENVER, CO. USA.

Some Bible hope is reserved for that great promised day of the

Lord. The rest of it is intended for our use in 2013!

For many readers, the thirteenth chapter of Paul's first letter to the

Corinthians — the Love Chapter — is among the most precious

portions of Scripture.

The thirteenth and final verse of this chapter sets love at the top of

chief Christian virtues: "And now abide faith, hope, love, these

three; but the greatest of these is love." Faith is first, says the

apostle, and love is best.

Often overlooked between these primary pillars of moral strength

— faith and love — is hope. Like a second-born sibling or the

middle verse of a hymn, hope struggles for the validation she

deserves and comes up short of it. Not the first and not the

geatest, she is usually the bridesmaid and seldom the bride.

While the Bible's highest-ranking values are those of faith (in

God) and love (for God and others), among the most undervalued

of biblical virtues is that of hope — hope for God's best even

when we face the world's worst.

Let's look at the meaning of biblical hope, how it might look for

us in 2013, how it rarely works alone, and why we find it so

 difficult.

Hope's two-fold meaning

In Scripture, the meaning of hope moves from happy anticipation

to confident expectation. Hope is faith with a future. It is faith

looking forward, with both long- and short-term prospects.

The Bible often mentions hope with respect to God's ultimate,

long-term plan — to reconcile and redeem all things to Himself

in Christ. For the eternal future, there is no other assurance —

only in Him, by grace. The blessed hope of every Christian has

three r's — no, four: Jesus will return, we shall be raised to

eternal life, and the immortal saints shall reign with Him in God's

kingdom where righteousness prevails forever.

For this blessed and living hope we have been saved. Because it

is anchored in the faithfulness of God and the righteousness of

Christ, our hope is sure and steadfast. The promise is ours by

faith today and will be fully realized someday — there is no

doubt! This hope is faith for the long run (Romans 8:19-25; 1

Corinthians 15:19; Ephesians 1:10; Colossians 1:5; Titus 2:13; 1

Thessalonians 4:13; Hebrews 6:11,12, 18, 19; 1 Peter 1:3ff).

Most believers have no problem settling here, resting in the hope

of an eternal future with Christ. It's hope for the present that

gives us trouble.

What about the short run? Is there any hope in Christ for

tomorrow and next week?

Yes! Where there is life, there is hope. Christ is our life today,

and our hope is in Him — for the short and the long of it. For

Jesus' trusting children, the Spirit of God is the air we breathe.

Where the Spirit of God is, we have here-and-now hope, hope in

every breath. Hope for the short-term amounts to a confident

expectation that God is willing to do what He has promised, not

just in the future kingdom but also for today and tomorrow.

Hope for here and now?

Unfortunately, this doesn't appear to be the attitude of many

Christians in the Western world today. For them, hope for the

present is in short supply. This lack of hope is ironic: Despite

enjoying the world's most vibrant economies and most liberated

societies, despair has descended upon many in Europe and

America.

In the US, for example, it is not unusual to hear discordant notes

of hopelessness, most notably among those who've lost all

confidence in their democratically elected leadership. Losing the

vote, for them, is translated into expecting the worst for all

(Isaiah 49:14; Ephesians 2:12b).

Just hoping for a better nation won't get us far, but honest prayer

for prime ministers, presidents, and those in authority can

produce true-blue hope for better days. If I pray with zero

confidence that God hears and improves things and people, have I

truly prayed?

Believing we'll never see or do better in this life than we've

already known can trigger despair and depression. The psalmist

described this in a thrice-repeated refrain: "Why are you cast

down, O my soul?" And he knew the answer to such sadness:

"Hope in God ..." (42:5,11; 43:5).

Abraham is another stellar example of triumph through hope. He

believed God's promise of a son — that he would receive an

extraordinary and hilarious late-life blessing, even when it was

contrary to all outward evidence. Paul writes it this way:

"[Abraham] who, contrary to hope, in hope believed ..." (Romans

 4:18a).

In The Message, Eugene H. Peterson translates this as "When

everything was hopeless, Abraham believed anyway, deciding to

live not on the basis of what he saw he couldn't do but on what

God said he would do." That's hope!

Not just promise for tomorrow, God's Word offers the assurance

and prospect of help for today, so ...

It's OK to hope

If personal wellness is our concern, it's OK to hope for improved

health and wholeness this year — and the next. God shares our

concerns, and Christ sympathizes with our infirmities (Exodus

15:26; Proverbs 4:22; Hebrews 4:14-16; 1 Timothy 4:8a; 3 John

2).

But just hoping is not enough. Wellness is as closely related to

proper care of mind, body, and spirit — to healthy habits of

exercise, nutrition, and rest — as it is to prayers of faith.

Cooperating with nature in these ways is part of what it means

to walk humbly with God. Hope should be a powerful tonic to

nurture our full cooperation with all physical and spiritual

factors that tend toward wellness in the present.

Will cancer be cured before Christ comes? Polio, smallpox,

and Communism have been largely eliminated in our lifetime.

Why not cancer? It helps to hope. The surest nail in any

coffin is one that says, "We can't, Sir."

If failed joy and peace at home is of concern in 2013, it's OK

to hope for a happier, more stable family. The improvements

called for here are at the core of God's revealed will for His

people. Thus, we can hope confidently!

But hoping alone will not realize the hoped-for changes.

Home improvements are a realistic short-term goal only if one or

two or all of us who live there support the goal with amended

attitudes and actions. Let's get the help we need, chart a path to

progress, and step to it. By God's grace, we can win on the home

front!

It's OK to hope for a more loving and fruitful church and a better

world even before the Lord's return, but just hoping is not

enough. Let a true and living hope in God's Word and promise

prompt us to pray and act in behalf of the church we love and the

world He loves. Our hopes — our happy anticipation and

confident expectation for progress in both realms — please God.

We know this because it reflects His own heart and will and

Word.

Hoping anew   

Why do we find it so hard to hope and so easy to despair? Is it

that we've been often jaded and left empty by the unreality and

dissatisfaction of so much the present age offers to those who

pursue its pleasures? Have we substituted the promises of the

world for those of the Word?

Let's raise our levels of hope in Christ until they rank right up

there with faith and love. Start now with the truth of two verses

in Romans:

We have hope "through the patience and comfort of the

Scriptures" (15:4). By reading, studying, and obeying the Word,

we'll realize short-term benefits today:

.

"We are saved in this hope" (8:24a). Trusting Him, we'll wait for

 the long-term benefits yet unseen. 

What is Hope:

Hope in the New Testament is very different from the usual

concept of hope in our world. When modern man speaks of

hope, he almost always means the desire for a certain

possibility.

When a young-man says, "I-hope I get the job, he

recognizes the possibility he might not.

When a mother tells her child, "I hope you learned your

lesson," she may be expressing a mere desire.

These uses of the word hope express a preference for one

of several possible outcomes, but that's not the hope given

through God's Holy Spirit! The Bible's concept of hope is

that of a certainty not yet experienced.

The blessed hope of the Christian is the "glorious appearing

of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ" (Titus 2:13). Is

Christ's return just a possibility that might aot happen? No!

It's a certainty that just hasn't yet taken place! It's the

anticipation of a certain future. That's the Bible's hope!

— Loren Stacy

Completing Our Faith:

Hope is among the species of faith that correspond to past,

present, and future. When our faith looks to past bounty and we

recall from Whom all those blessings flowed, that evokes

gratitude. When our faith looks around to present natural beauty

and human need, that evokes love.

When our faith looks ahead with full confidence in God's Word

of promise, that evokes hope. We may be grateful to God for

yesterday and loving our neighbor today, but if we're not buoyed

 by hope for tomorrow, we're not fully alive.

Calvin Burrell

....................

HOPE FOR THE FUTURE MEANS WE ALSO DO OUR PART.

YES WE HAVE FAITH IN GOD TO HELP US THROUGH

WHATEVER SITUATIONS COME OUR WAY. WE HAVE FAITH

IF OUT OF WORK THAT GOD WILL PROVIDE FOR US, AND

ANOTHER JOB WILL COME TO US. BUT WE MUST DO OUR

PART, WE MUST USE WISDOM AND WORKING WITH

EFFORT AND COMMON SENSE, WE DO OUR PART TO FIND

ANOTHER JOB.

HOPE IS POSITIVE - FAITH IN GOD, AND DOING OUR PART

WITHIN THAT HOPE, WHICH IS ASSURANCE GOD WILL BE

WITH US AND SEE US THROUGH WHATEVER FUTURE LIFE

COMES OUR WAY.

Keith Hunt