Last week we considered how the God of our faith makes our lives abundant. This week we reflect on facing the future with hope, but not as a weak sentiment. Our hope in God enables us to rejoice, enjoy our salvation, and provides an anchor for our souls.
Our Countenance
We learn that hope helps our countenance. The melancholy psalmist (Psalm 42) longs for the living God.
“Why are you cast down, O my soul?” he cries. “Why are you disquieted within me?” Then he admonishes himself, “Hope thou in God: I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance.” His experience has taught him to hope.
“We rejoice in hope of the glory of God,” Paul writes. “Hope doesn’t disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts.”
We Are Saved
Paul also writes of hope in Romans 8. “It is in this hope we are saved,” he says. What hope? He states further, “We who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope, we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. If we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.” We are saved and yet hope for its completion.
Anchor For the Soul
Hope also holds us steady when the rough seas of circumstance or adversity threaten to drown us. The writer of Hebrews states, “We have fled for refuge to lay hold of the hope set before us. This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which enters the Presence behind the veil, where the forerunner has entered for us, even Jesus, having become High Priest forever.”
Our hope in God enables us to rejoice, enjoy our salvation, and provides an anchor for our souls.