Hope

I love Spring. It makes my unkept yard beautiful. I love seeing the splaying branches of the dogwoods up front popping with flowers. It is a new beginning after a cold, brown Winter. This gives me a hope. A reprieve from dark days and chilly winds. A hope for warm, sunny days - and I get to be home with the kids.

Hope is a wonderful thing. It can get us through some rough times. When we have a hope of being able to slog through whatever struggle we are going through...we have a spark that encourages us to make it through.

There is such a thing as false hope though.

How do we differentiate between these two things....how do we know a hope is sure?

Romans 8
22 We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 23 Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. 24 For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? 25 But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.

There is no need to hope for what we can already see. We hope for the things that we do not yet have, cannot hold, are unable to obtain in the present. There are many people that promise us wonderful things - money, happiness, friends, confidence if we will just buy this, do this, be this...these promises are everywhere you look. But these things are truly empty things promised by those who are just like the false prophets of the Old Testament.


Jeremiah 23:15-17
15 Therefore, this is what the LORD Almighty says concerning the prophets:
"I will make them eat bitter food
and drink poisoned water,
because from the prophets of Jerusalem
ungodliness has spread throughout the land."
16 This is what the LORD Almighty says:
"Do not listen to what the prophets are prophesying to you;
they fill you with false hopes.
They speak visions from their own minds,
not from the mouth of the LORD.
17 They keep saying to those who despise me,
'The LORD says: You will have peace.'
And to all who follow the stubbornness of their hearts
they say, 'No harm will come to you.'

I think we can safely say that God does not want us to listen to the "false prophets" of this age either. He wants us to rely on Him. When we place our hope in things of this world, we are promised to be disappointed. This world is an empty place when our hope is not in the Lord. The secure job, the nice car, the big houses, being able to go on nice vacations...all of these things mean nothing. If our hopes are not securely placed in Christ, they mean nothing.

Romans 5
1Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. 3Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4perseverance, character; and character, HOPE. 5And HOPE does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.

Psalm 25:2-4
2 in you I trust, O my God.
Do not let me be put to shame,
nor let my enemies triumph over me.
3 No one whose hope is in you
will ever be put to shame,
but they will be put to shame
who are treacherous without excuse.
4 Show me your ways, O LORD,
teach me your paths;

Psalm 43:4-5
4 Then will I go to the altar of God,
to God, my joy and my delight.
I will praise you with the harp,
O God, my God.
5 Why are you downcast, O my soul?
Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
for I will yet praise him,
my Savior and my God

Put your hope in Christ alone. You will not be disappointed.