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When you open the newspapers, switch on the TV, go on Google or scan through Facebook, you can’t help but come to the conclusion that this world needs hope. Last week a person contacted us saying that they had just found out that they are HIV positive. A week before a friend was held hostage in his own house and before that a teenager committed suicide. How many stories have you heard this week of people who are in desperate need of hope?

The word “hope” in ordinary English vocabulary is generally distinguished from certainty. We would say, “I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I hope it happens.”

When you read the word “hope” in the Bible (like in 1 Peter 1:13—”set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ”), hope is not wishful thinking. It’s not “I don’t know if it’s going to happen, but I hope it happens.” That’s absolutely not what is meant by Christian hope.

Christian hope is when God has promised that something is going to happen and you put your trust in that promise. Christian hope is a confidence that something will come to pass because God has promised it will come to pass.

Hope & Faith

“Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith.  Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. Heb 6:11-12”

Now what does “the full assurance of hope” mean in verse 11? It means hope which is fully assured. Hope which is confident. Hope that has moral certainty in it. It is not finger-crossing hope. It is not the lip-biting gaze as you watch the place kicker go for a field-goal in the last ten seconds when you are down by two points.

In fact, verse 12 implies that hope and faith are almost synonymous. Notice the connection: verse 11 says, Go hard after full assurance of hope; verse 12 says the result of that pursuit of hope is that you will be like those who through faith and patience inherit the promises. Pursue hope so that you can be like men of faith.

You can see this in Hebrews 11:1. This is the closest thing we have to a definition of faith in all the New Testament, I think.

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

Here’s how I would paraphrase this verse.

Wherever there is full assurance of hope, there is faith. Faith is the full assurance of hope. Biblical faith is a confident expectation and desire for good things in the future.

But faith is more than that. It is also the “conviction of things not seen,” and some of these are not future. For example, verse 3: “By faith we understand that the world was created by the word of God.” Faith can look back (to creation) as well as forward. So faith is the larger idea. It includes hope, but is more than hope. You might put it this way: faith is our confidence in the Word of God, and whenever that Word has reference to the future, you can call our confidence in it hope. Hope is faith in the future tense.

To put it simply;

Hope keeps us going when we want to give up!

Hope is the ray of sunshine in the storm of life.

Hope is the air in our lungs when we’re drowning in our pain.

Hope is the silent whisper in your heart that tells you to keep going, when difficult circumstances are shouting in your face.

Hope is seen on a blood stained cross that resulted in an empty tomb.

Hope is a RISEN SAVIOR who conquered death.

Hope knows that if Jesus is for me, who or what can be against me.

Hope knows that because Jesus conquered death I can face tomorrow.

Hope knows that one day JESUS will take all that is wrong and make it right.

Hope knows that we are not alone because of He is always with us.

HOPE is what this world DESPERATELY NEEDS!!!

The message of Easter is a message of HOPE.

People need hope! There is hope

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