"Now hope does not disappoint..." (Romans 5:5).
Life can get us so far down that we want to get in the car and drive toward Arkansas just so we can feel like we're heading toward hope. Hope is one of the greatest four-letter words of our existence.
What is hope? It's more than a town in Arkansas. "Hope" made the top three list of those things which are most valuable and will abide forever: "faith, hope, and love" (1st Corinthians 13).
We know about false hope. It's that feeling you get in the first six hours of a diet. We also know that hope is not something you can live on exclusively. Nor is it something you can live without.
Hope is the airbag in the accidents of life. Hope is what compels us to hang on to clothes that no longer fit. Hope is the step we take when wearing shoes of faith. Yet even before that...hope is when we slip on the shoes of faith when the shoes of doubt are more comfortable and easier to slip into.
The New Testament gives a whole new dimension to hope. The "hope" of the English language is filled with iffy-ness. Hope implies a degree of the uncertain. The New Testament word for hope is quite un-iffy. It has no artificial ingredients of uncertainty. It is 100% confident. It is a happy anticipation of something good.
New Testament hope is the look on the face of the kid who took first place in his event at the Special Olympics just before being awarded his medal. He knows he won. His hope of the medal is all about anticipation, not speculation.
Colossians 1:27 says, "Christ in you (is) the hope of glory." If you have Christ, you have hope. Not the iffy kind. The certain kind. You don't need to drive toward Arkansas to find hope. Just open your Bible, open your heart, and open the arms of your soul to embrace the hope that is surely yours. Just believe.
Hopped up on Hope,
Perry Crisp
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