Jesus is my Hope

Some words in the English language are both nouns and verbs. Love is one of them. We can say, “I love you” and “You are my love” as an example. Another example is HOPE.

Normally we think of hope as a verb because it seems like something we do, but the Bible often uses hope as something we have, like confidence or assurance. It can mean a desire or a wish, such as “I hope yesterday’s snowfall will be melted by suppertime.” However both testaments tell us to hope in God with a difference in the source or desire; instead of it being something I want or wish for, biblical HOPE is a gift, a noun that comes from God.

Romans 15:13. May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.

Another example is in Romans 5:2 which says, “Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.” This is not a mere wish — wishes easily produce anxiety because we are not too sure they will happen, but biblical hope is a confident expectation that produces joy because we are certain of the object of our hope. Romans 5:5 says this hope is a result of God’s love being poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit; again, it comes from Him, not my own wishes.  

While hope is about the future, about events like the return of Jesus Christ, the resurrection of the dead, a restored creation and being in heaven with all God’s people, my hope is centered on Jesus Christ. He is my hope, both now as concerning all the issues of this life, and the future where I will be with Him for all eternity:

Colossians 1:27. To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

1 Timothy 1:1. Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by command of God our Savior and of Christ Jesus our hope . . .  

In trying to think of a parallel, falling in love and marriage could illustrate. A bride hopes for a lovely wedding, a family, a good life, but her hope is centered on the groom, the one she joins with who will be with her in making that hope a reality. He is her hope for the future. The difference is that as the bride of Christ, the church (including me) has a certain hope in our Savior. All His promises assure the hope we have. He is our hope in the sense that He will give us a forever union with Him and eternal life, even a ‘marriage supper’ as declared in Revelation 19:9:

And the angel said to me, “Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.” And he said to me, “These are the true words of God.”

GAZE INTO HIS GLORY. I’ve the sense of a bride walking down the aisle toward Jesus, my hope for all eternity. From the little I know at this time about Him, I have great anticipation that eternity will be filled with great and amazing discoveries about who He is and what He has done. The joy in my heart tells me that it will be far better that anything I can now imagine.