Hope That Really Helps!

  The Merriam-Webster dictionary says that HOPE means “to want something to happen or be true and think that it could happen or be true.” Since life is hard and we since live in a broken world, we all need a heavy dose of hope. Otherwise, we are in danger of sinking into despair and depression.

A lack of hope can even be fatal. Utter hopelessness usually sets in when a person feels as if they have tried everything they know to be happy, and nothing helps or makes any sense. If hopelessness festers long enough, suicide becomes the only logical answer to life’s problems.

The different types of hope that the world offers don’t really present any lasting hope. Tennis star Boris Becker is a good example. He struggled with suicide when he was at the top of the tennis world. He said, “I had won Wimbledon twice before, once as the youngest player. I was rich. I had all the material possessions I needed. . . . It’s the old song of movie stars and pop stars who commit suicide. They have everything, and yet they are so unhappy. I had no inner peace. I was a puppet on a string.”

Boris Becker is not the only one who looked successful, but felt empty inside. Jack Higgens is another example. He is a very successful author of novels like The Eagle Has Landed. One day he was asked what he knows now that he wishes he had known when he was a boy. His answer: “That when you get to the top, there’s nothing there.”

A hope that doesn’t deliver what it promises is almost worse than no hope at all. We’ve all gotten our hopes up about something, only to have them cruelly dashed. What we need is a hope that never fails.

Thankfully there is a hope that never fails.

Notice how the Bible contrasts false hope with real hope: “A horse is a false hope for victory; nor does it deliver anyone by its great strength. Behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear Him, on those who hope for His lovingkindness, to deliver their soul from death and to keep them alive in famine. Our soul waits for the Lord; He is our help and our shield. For our heart rejoices in Him, because we trust in His holy name. Let Your lovingkindness, O Lord, be upon us, according as we have hoped in You” (Psalm 33:17–22).

When we see ourselves as sinners in need of a Savior (see Ephesians 2:12), then God’s amazing hope is available to us when we turn our lives over to Jesus Christ. “But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved)” (Ephesians 2:4–5).

When God performs the miracle of the New Birth in a person’s heart, He then gives a real and lasting hope that will never disappoint. “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” (1 Peter 1:3).

I like the way Pastor John Piper describes what God’s hope will do for a follower of Jesus: “And there is no sweeter message of hope in all the world than to hear God announce that when you get up in the morning, miserable and depressed with a sense of guilt and estrangement before a holy God, you can go to bed that very night—this very night—with a quiet and peaceful heart knowing that every sin you have ever committed and ever will commit is forgiven and you are reconciled to the Almighty by the death of his Son. That’s the free offer of the Gospel!”

“Our hope is anchored in the past: Jesus arose!

Our hope remains in the present: Jesus lives!

Our hope is completed in the future: Jesus is coming!”