Hope

“If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.”—1 Corinthians 15:19

The Christian life is not one of actualization in the present, but in the future. If hope were to be realized now, then it would not be hope. For some, hope is confident faith in the future; but for the Christian, it’s the confident hope in the future that God will fulfill what He has promised to those who trust in Him. Most of the problems that we face on a day to day basis, the deadlines, bills, meetings, events, and schedules are all focused on the here and now. The Christian life is built for the present with an eye to the future. Our hope in Christ affects how we live and conduct ourselves in the present. We know that all wrongs will be righted, all faithfulness will be rewarded, and all wickedness will be judged. Our lives are short, a mere breath, transitory in fact. It is mind-boggling when we consider the brevity of our lives. Ours is a heartbeat, a cameo appearance, a blink in the movie of a time. Nonetheless we are here and we look to Jesus Christ, who is the personification of truth, life, and the only way of salvation from the wrath of God.

Many of us, however, are not placing our hope in Christ, but in other things. We are guilty of placing our hope in our own abilities, education, status, and talents. We place our hope in systems of government, political figures, and cultural icons. We pattern our lives after the best and brightest among us, using the language that they use, dressing the way that they dress, watch what they watch, and do what they do. And whenever one fashion or trend becomes stale, they jump to something else and we jump right with them. We are constantly looking for a way to fill the God-shaped hole within our souls. We are guilty of building our hope in anything but Christ.

God’s people did the same thing in the Old Testament that we are doing today. They forsook God and created their own version of spirituality. Jeremiah the prophet described it this way,

“For My people have committed two evils: they have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water”—Jeremiah 2:13.

You see that? What are the two evils? The first is that they left God behind. They left the path of following Christ. Secondly, they created their own version of spirituality. But it is a spirituality that won’t last and inevitably will come to an end. It cannot satisfy.

We are not to place our hope in anything but Christ Jesus. Not in a political system or figure, anything we can do or achieve, get or grasp onto, we can only place our hope in the God-Man, Christ Jesus. He came to identify with us, die on our behalf on the cross, and rise again from the dead. And give to all who trust in Him forgiveness of sins and eternal life with Him in glory. Yes, the Scripture is true. If we hope in this life alone, we are to be pitied. Others should feel sorry for us, for we have wasted our lives for the greatest conspiracy known to man. But, it is true, Christ has risen from the dead, and the greatest conspiracy is not that Christ died for us, it’s that so many have chosen to ignore the greatest act in human history! May we submit ourselves to Him, loving Him with all of our heart, placing our hope in Him and Him alone, knowing that He will fulfill what He has promised in His Word to do. Amen.