Choosing Hope

Tuesday, April 14, 2020  Some Material taken from Is There Any Hope by Van Houser
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.  1 Peter 1:3

Choosing Hope
Happiness is a choice they say.  I believe that hope is a choice as well, and a choice we must make every single day.  We either choose hope, or we choose despair, and the difference is life and death.

Some people hope…others HAVE hope, and that is a big difference. Real hope has a REASON to believe.  The bigger the reason, the bigger the hope, but if we look at our lives, the circumstances of our lives on any given day will provide no reason to hope.  That is why hope is a choice.  Because we have to choose to find hope in something other than what we can see with our own eyes.  We mush have eyes of faith to see through hopelessness into hope.  Where there is fear, where there is sorrow, where there is exhaustion without promise of relief…anywhere we lose control…we need hope, and right now, we have very little control.

This past Sunday was Easter, the day we celebrate Jesus’ resurrection from the dead.  This year Easter was different for all of us, but the reason for Easter has not changed.  We may all be shelter in place or safer at home but thank God that Jesus did not stay safe in His tomb.  He rose from the dead so we could have hope.  He rose from the dead so we could be released from all that binds us and drowns us in hopelessness.  Some of the things we have been released from – involuntarily – during this time has given us great release from hopelessness. 

Just as the reason for Easter did not change with the onslaught of a pandemic, neither did the result of Easter.  The resurrection did happen, and today it still means the same thing for us as it meant the day it happened.  We have hope for salvation, grace, mercy, forgiveness, love, and eternal life. Real hope is not in what you believe; it is in whom you believe. Our hope is built on the fact that there is one who has been raised before us.  Our hope is in the resurrection of Jesus from the grave. That is a hope we can take into tomorrow with us, and every day after that.  It is a hope that keeps on living and keeps going and applies to everyone and everything to the end of time.  There is nothing that is too big for the hope of Christ and eternal life.

Every single day of my life I can find something that could steal my hope.  There are walls popping up all around me, that provide nothing but obstacles to seeing a clear path ahead, but my God can see over those walls and He has, in fact, paved the way for me. He holds my future and my hope, and I must choose again, every day, to hope in Him.

He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.  1 Peter 1:20-