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“Therefore, prepare your minds for action, keep sober in spirit, fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”  1 Peter 1:13

Hope is essential. And I think we can all agree that its opposite—hopelessness—leads to discouragement, depression, and desperation. Even in the secular vernacular, hope is vital to mental and emotional health. According to the website positivepsychology.com,

Hope helps us remain committed to our goals and motivated to take action towards achieving. Hope gives people a reason to continue fighting and believing that their current circumstances will improve, despite the unpredictable nature of human existence.

“A reason to continue fighting and believing”—I like this phrase. But the issue at hand is what “reason” we clutch onto. Is it some nebulous emotional state or even a reliance on “powers that be”? Is it people (or a person), a job, money, or a government? When hope evades some people, they even grasp at things like drugs and alcohol in order to infuse a bit of “hope” into their lives. Sadly, all these things, which people place their hope in all the time, are like shifting sands. Unstable, unreliable, uncertain.

For the Christian, we have “a reason to continue” that is sure—despite what’s going on around us. We hope in the Lord and His unmovable love. We have certainty in Jesus Christ, who, through His death and resurrection, exchanged our sin for His righteousness, making a way for us to stand before God unashamed and unjudged. We hope in our unchangeable salvation and our freedom in Christ. We hope in our ultimate release from this sinful (pain-filled and broken) body for a perfected vessel to house our also-perfected spirit. We hope in the new heaven and earth, once this fallen world is finally judged and burned up.

See, as time goes on, we will not “save the planet” or create “perfect societies”—on the contrary, the earth and its residents continue to decay and fall farther away from perfection. Hoping in “environmental sustainability” or any “new world order” is like hoping in mist. The only hope for humanity is Jesus Christ—the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

Even thousands of years before Christ, people and nations were putting hope in armies, governments, and false idols. Those leaders, armies, and nations—and their hopeful followers—all fell. The Truth, as recorded in God’s Word even then, holds fast:

Some trust in chariots and some in horses,
but we trust in the name of the Lord our God.

They are brought to their knees and fall,
but we rise up and stand firm.

~ Psalm 20:7-8

“Father, I am so thankful that the Source of my hope is sure, and that I can unreservedly live for my future, which is known and promised.”

For His Glory

Julianne Winkler Smith
TRBC Women’s Life