1 Corinthians 13:13 “So now faith, hope and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”
Hope. We all need it. Without hope we are hopeless, and no one wants to be hopeless in this life. Hopelessness leaves us empty.
In 1 Corinthians the Apostle Paul extols the benefits of love. That is often called the love chapter of the bible. But at the end of that chapter, he brings up three very important life needs, faith, hope and love.
Why bring up those three after singling out love? Because they all are necessary in order to live a life worth living in this world. Paul says that love is the greatest, and indeed I believe everyone would agree that love is the most important need we have in this life. And to that, the bible says, “God is love.” But we also need faith and hope, two other very necessary ingredients to a full life.
Faith, because without it we cannot please God nor have our sins washed away.
But what about hope? Why does the bible include faith, hope and love together, these three as it says? Why hope and where does hope come from?
Hope is necessary in order to help us walk through the times in our life when things are not going the way we want them to. Maybe we are suffering from a health issue? Maybe a financial problem? Maybe we are dealing with a broken relationship? Life is full of problems and when our problems rob us of a future that we can enjoy, we lose hope. Losing hope is to lose a desired future.
But we have hope. Our hope is in Jesus Christ. He gives us hope because He gives us a future. Whatever our life is right now, in the middle of whatever struggle we are going through, Jesus enters and gives us hope for a better future. He gives us hope in the middle of our struggles because He has the power to change our present and our future.
Just because our present is not what we wish it were does not mean our future will remain hard and dark. Jesus can, and does, change our troubles, and gives us hope for a better future.
He gives the prisoner hope for fulfillment while in prison and hope for a life outside. He gives the poor hope for a better job and a more secure financial future. He gives those grieving a loved one’s death, hope for a heart filled with love again. He gives those in the pain of some health crisis, help for today and healing for tomorrow. Even when everything in this world tells you there is no hope for whatever is going wrong in your life, Jesus smiles and says, just wait, the best is yet to come!
Our ultimate hope is the promise of heaven. The bible tells us that we who have faith in Jesus have our sins forgiven and are given the promise of eternal life in heaven. Heaven is truly a blessed hope for a better future. No matter how bad things are in this life, we can look forward to life in heaven as we believe in Jesus. That is our final hope and that hope never fades.
So, where does our hope come from? Not from within ourselves. While we can do some things to make our lives better in this world, we are unable to make everything better. But, God is greater. Our hope is that God is greater than all our problems and that heaven awaits all those who have faith in Jesus. Those things never change. God never changes and so His help in our troubles will always be there, and heaven awaits us no matter what. Hope. Hang on to hope!
Pastor Gary.