The power of hope defines the psychological victim and psychological survivor. If I could find a way to package and dispense hope, I would have a pill more powerful than any antidepressant on the market. Hope is often the only thing between man and the abyss. As long as a patient, individual or victim has hope, they can recover from anything and everything." Those words sound like they were written by a Christian preacher. But they weren’t. They were written by Dale Archer, M.D. in an online blog @ psychologytoday.com. The title of the piece was "The Power of Hope," posted, July 31, 2013. The doctor goes on to say, "However, if they lose hope, unless you can help them get it back, all is lost." I don’t know if Dr. Archer is a Christian. What I know is that the New Testament and the church described in its pages are unrivaled when it comes to hope and the power that comes packaged with it! The apostle Paul referred to God as "the God of hope" who can "fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit" (Romans 15:13). We are saved in hope that we cannot yet see, even as "we eagerly wait for it with perseverance" (8:24-25). The apostle Peter describes the Christian hope as "a living hope," grounded not on a wish or hunch or luck, but in the bedrock reality that Jesus Christ was raised from the dead and walked out of His tomb (1 Peter 1:3)! Hope is "laid up for you in heaven," and we hear about this laid-up hope "in the word of the truth of the gospel" (Colossians 1:5). The Hebrews writer taught Christians to "lay hold of the hope set before us," and that, "This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which enters the Presence behind the veil" (Hebrews 6:18b-19). The hope the gospel brings to our hearts anchors our souls in Heaven even as our ship is battered and tossed about by earthly winds and storms that beat into our souls here on earth. Edward Mote expressed it this way in verses two and three of his powerful 1834 song, "My Hope Is Built On Nothing Less" – "In every high and stormy gale, My anchor holds within the vale ... When all around my soul gives way, He then is all my hope and stay." We are taught to "put on ... as a helmet the hope of salvation" (1 Thessalonians 5:8b). This verse likens our hope in Jesus to a helmet covering our head, protecting our prone-to-wander minds, helping us to keep our minds "set on things above, not on things on earth" (Colossians 3:2). And when a loved one dies in Christ, Christians sorrow, but "not sorrow as others who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus" (1 Thessalonians 4:13b-14). No wonder then the apostle Paul referred to "the Lord Jesus Christ, our hope" (1 Timothy 1:1b). A fundamental truth of Scripture is that we are not made solely for this present life. This life was never intended to fully satisfy us. "If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men the most to be pitied" (1 Corinthians 15:19). Christians freely admit that when it comes to forgiveness of sin, separation from God, death and getting out of the grave, we have only one hope (Ephesians 4:4). The thing is, that’s one more than the world has, for those without Christ have "no hope" (Ephesians 2:12). Please tell me – why would anybody ever abandon the one hope we have for a world that offers no hope at all? Just asking.
"Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He is faithful who promised" Hebrews 10:23
by: Dan Gulley, Smithville, TN
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