Hope

Quite often, when people are approached about their eternal destiny, they will come up with the answer to the question about arriving in heaven, "Well, I hope so." We use the word "hope" quite a lot these days. For most of the world, the word hope is something that may or may not happen. For them, it would be good if it did happen, but it may not necessarily be so. On the other hand, for the believer, the word "hope" has quite a different meaning. Colossians 1:5 says, "For the hope which is laid up for you in heaven, whereof ye heard before in the word of the truth of the gospel;" We find the word used about 127 times in the Bible and that makes it very important. Biblical hope however, is quite different than the hope that comes from the world. Biblical hope is always a confident expectation. It is something that is guaranteed to take place. There is not a 50-50 chance of it occurring nor is there just a possibility that it will occur. No, the truth about Biblical hope is that it will take place just as promised in the Bible. When Paul spoke to the Colossians about the "hope" that was laid up for them in heaven, he was speaking about something that was guaranteed.
The use of the word in the Christian sense is the only case where hope is guaranteed. We can say that because we base our findings upon the fact that the Bible has always been proved to be correct and the promises that God has made in the past have always come to be exactly as He said they would, even when they might sound ridiculous at the time. For Job to say that God hangs the earth upon nothing, may seem to be a far out statement. Yet, "nothing" is a pretty good explanation of space in the universe. For centuries, this seemed to be impossible yet, it has been proven to be correct. The Hittites were long thought to be a fictitious people but during the 20th century, were found to be exactly as God said they were. All of this to say that when you have your hope in God and His plan and when your hope is heaven, you can be assured that it is a confident expectation and that it is a guaranteed precept. Praise God today for giving you a hope for the days ahead.