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“Hope springs eternal in the human breast,” Alexander Pope said. We are hardwired to believe that our best days are yet to come. Hope is essential; it sustains us through our sorrows and guides us in the darkness. Hope is the oxygen for the soul, giving us the strength to take risks, face challenges, and persevere. Without it, the lightest burden feels unbearable, the smallest challenge insurmountable.
While all men need hope, only a Christian can have genuine hope—a hope that will not haunt our greatest victories with disappointment, fail us when we need it most, and leave us naked in the end. Here’s why.
a faithful word
For many, hope is little more than a wish or a whim—a roll of the dice, a leap of faith, doing their best, hoping to dodge fate and beat the odds. Christians are different. Our hope rests on the promises of a God who cannot lie (Titus 1:2) and whose Word never fails. Heaven and earth will pass away, but not one jot or tittle—not the smallest letter or the tiniest stroke of a scribe’s pen—can pass away from the law until all is fulfilled (see Matt. 5:18).
The Belfast Bible teacher Derick Bingham once shared a story from his early days as a young pastor conducting a funeral for an elderly missionary. The missionary’s wife of sixty years stood by the grave, listening as Bingham spoke: “When God makes a promise, He binds Himself by seven. So when He says, ‘I will never leave you,’ it really means, ‘I will never, never, never, never, never, never, no, never leave you!’”
As the mourners departed, the widow approached Bingham, looked him in the face, and with a glint in her eye said: “Son, when you’re starting out, God may need to promise seven times. But after He’s walked with you many a year through thick and through thin, once is enough.”
Unlike the world, Christian, you have a hope that rests on a covenant that is ordered in all things and sure. You have a Word from the almighty God that will never fail you. But perhaps you wonder, “What if I fail it?”
a gracious god
Theologians describe God’s grace as His love for the undeserving, which is true—but grace is better than that because we are worse than that. We are not just undeserving; we are hell-deserving sinners. When God saves us, He reaches down far—down to the bottom of the bottomless pit. There, at the nadir, He embraces us.
In Ephesians 2, Paul says that we are not just weak or sick. We are dead in our sins, lifeless just like fish floating belly-up in dirty water. Satan’s willing slaves, we lived in our sins, doing whatever felt good to our bodies and seemed good to our minds. By nature, we were children of wrath (v. 3). Then grace stepped into the fray, and hope sprang to life (vv. 4–6). Here is grace that is designed to dazzle the eyes of angels and taunt the eyes of demons for all eternity (v. 7). God will never give up on you. His grace is so high that you can’t get over it, so deep that you can’t possibly get under it, and so tenacious that you can’t get away from it.
a finished work
What must you do to receive this grace? Simply receive it by faith. Christ has done it all. In Romans 4, Paul explains that Christ was delivered to death because we were sinners and was raised for our justification, for our being counted righteous in Him (vv. 23–25). We are justified by faith, have peace with God, enjoy access to His limitless grace, and can rejoice in the hope of His glory (5:1–11). This hope, Paul says, will never disappoint us, for God’s love fills our hearts through the Holy Spirit (v. 5).
Can you sin your way out of this hope? No, Paul assures us: “While we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly” (v. 6). God showed His love by sending His Son to die for us while we were still sinners (see v. 8). The logic is clear: If God upheld His most costly promise when you were entirely lost in sin, weak, and ungodly, then could He now break His commitment, shatter your hope, and abandon your soul—now that you have taken refuge in His Son? Never! You didn’t earn your way into this hope, and you can’t sin your way out of it.
a sovereign father
Christians live locked in the double-handed grip of tender omnipotence. Christ assures us of this in John 10:27–30. Jesus carries us in His bosom; none can snatch us out of His hand. The Father who gave us to Jesus holds us tight, and none can pull us from His grasp either.
This security is anchored in God’s sovereign and eternal counsel. Before time began, before the world existed, God set His love on you, entrusting you to His Son, giving you into His hands forever. Though we speak of it as a “moment,” this choice was made outside time. Set in eternity, His love for you has no beginning and will have no end. Let that glorious truth sink deep into your soul: God has never existed without loving you, without seeing you in Christ (Eph. 1:3). His love for you is as unchanging as His character—the same yesterday, today, and forever.
An optimist sees the world through rose-colored glasses. As a result, the colors look much warmer than they are in reality. Well, Christian, God views you through “Christ-colored” glasses. He sees His beauty, His glory, and His perfect righteousness. He does not view you as you are by yourself, in your sins. He views you in Christ; He never thinks of you without also thinking of His lovely Son, Jesus Christ.
a certain future
Think of a Christian lady who has battled breast cancer for many years. The chemotherapy has failed. Her fight is almost over. She is about to breathe her last. What hope does she have? As she dies, she will not be alone. Her faithful Savior is with her. Death may wait in her hospital room. But death is there as a servant whose only job is to open heaven’s door and let her in.
And when it comes, her soul is immediately at rest. Her striving stops. Her spirit bursts forth with never-before-felt freedom. Her soul is carried to heaven as God prepares to bring another of His beloved, blood-bought children home. She enters into the presence of the King who is there in all His beauty.
Yet even here, her best days lie ahead. Soon, that glorious moment will come when Christ returns to make all things new and to create a new heavens and earth in which righteousness dwells. Then, the now will swallow up the not yet, and our best of days will be forever. What a hope. And if it is yours today, Christian, the fullness of this hope will be yours soon, and it will be yours forever.