“So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but
the greatest of these is love." (I Corinthians 13:13 ESV)
Faith,
hope and love always abide. There is no denying that the greatest of
this things is love - for it is through the love of God that we gain our faith
and our hope. When we get to heaven our faith will be substantiated
and our hope will be fulfilled -- for in heaven Love will reign
eternally.
Christians often speak of faith. We talk about increasing our faith or
maturing in our faith. Sometimes when the trials of life besiege
us we cry out for more faith. Scripture says "we walk by faith
and not by sight." (II Corinthians 5:7)
God must come
first in our lives. So we see that faith is an active faith.
Our faith is manifested in the way we live every day. We
cannot make light of the necessity of a deep and abiding faith.
We
also speak frequently about the love of God. There is no doubt that the
Father loves us. As Christians we love the Father and His Son.
We keep Christ's commandments because we love Him -- (John
14: 15) and we love God because He first loved us. (I John
4:19) Love is the one single driving force of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Not only does God love us -- but His Son does too. He willingly gave His
life for us because of his great love for us. Consider Ephesians 5:2 –“And walk in love, as
Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice
to God." What an absolutely beautiful verse! And it was Paul's
prayer that the Christians at Ephesus - "know the love of Christ that surpasses
knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God."
(Ephesians 3:19)
Yes,
we often speak of faith and love; but it seems to me that
we don't hear as much about hope as we do faith and love. Yet, hope
is also a vital part of the Christian life. Hope is mentioned 58 times
in the King James Version of the New Testament and the English Standard Version
uses the word hope 75 times in the New Testament. It must be a
pretty significant topic. Wouldn't it be beneficial for us
to understand as much about our hope in Christ as we can?
What is the
definition of hope? It seems we use the word much differently these days
than those who lived in New Testament times did.
Merriam-Webster defines hope this way: (verb) "to want something to happen or be
true and think it could happen or be true." (noun)
"the feeling of wanting something to happen and thinking that it could
happen: a feeling that something good will happen or be true."
We might
say we hope our team will win. Maybe we hope our favorite item
on the restaurant menu will be on special this
weekend. Yet we don't really know if the restaurant will be running
any specials at all. And as good as our team may be, anything can happen
in a ballgame.
In the
New Testament the meaning of the Greek word translated as hope is more
tangible than our modern definition. The Biblical use of the word hope implies much more than a "thought" or "feeling." Actually, there is
more than one Greek word translated as hope in the King James; but
54 out of 58 times the Greek word is elpis - (pronounced as
el-pece').
The definition from Strong's Exhaustive Concordance
is: to expect or anticipate, usually with pleasure; expectation or hope. Vine's Expository
Dictionary describes this word as "favorable and confident
expectation; the happy anticipation of good." In other words -
Biblical hope is a joyful and confident expectation that a future event will
happen.
We have
faith in God. We believe He exists and because we do, we have a
confident assurance that God will keep His promises. We fully expect Him
to reward us for obeying Him because that is what He told us He would do. We can trust God because we know He means what He says.
The ultimate reward is heaven. It was
this hope -- this confident looking toward heaven with joyful anticipation that
gave the early church the impetus to grow by leaps and bounds. It enabled
them to endure persecution. Hope kept them going.
We
expect to see our Savior one day. Faith and hope are very closely
entwined, but they are not the exact same thing. Faith means we know
it is -- hope means we know it will be. Perhaps sharing a
few verses together will help us understand more about hope.
Hope is a vital element in our Christian lives. Hope is
what we cling to when things go bad. It is what gets us through another
day. Hope was that important to the New Testament Christians as well.
In Acts 16
when Paul and Silas were in Philippi, Paul healed the slave girl who had the
spirit of divination. Her owners were very unhappy about this because
they "saw that the hope of their gains was gone." (v. 19) These men
were using her “spirit” for monetary gain and they expected (hoped) to continue
to do so. Paul took that hope away from them.
In Acts
27:20 when Paul and Luke were on the ship caught in the violent storm - Luke
records "all hope that we should be saved was then taken away."
No one (except Paul) expected to live through "the tempest." The terrible storm they were trapped in for so many days removed any confidence in a chance for survival.
- Romans 5:2 - "By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God"
- Romans 5:5 - "And hope makes not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given to use.
- Romans 8:24 - "For we are saved by hope; but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man sees, why does he yet hope for?"
- Romans 15:13 - "Now the God hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost."
- I Corinthians 9:10 - "Or say he it altogether for our sakes? For our sakes, no doubt, this is written; that he that plows should plow in hope; and he that threshes in hope should be partaker of his hope.
- Ephesians 1:18 - "The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, and what the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints."
OK, I know this has been rather lengthy, but hope is so important and these scriptures are so beautiful -- I just want to share three of four more.
- Titus 1:2 - "In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began." Oh how beautiful this verse is! What a wonderful promise!
- Titus 2:3 - "Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ."
- In Hebrews 10:23 the word faith is the same Greek word "elpis" that is translated as hope every other time that particular Greek word is used. It is worthy of noting that verse here. "Let us hold fast the profession of our faith (elpis /hope)without wavering; (for He is faithful that promised).
Finally in closing, I don't think I can say anything any better than our brother Peter said through inspiration in I Peter 1:3 --
"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to His abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,"
Christ above all things,
Robin
No comments:
Post a Comment