The Hope Of The Gospel

By Jonathan Helmuth

September 1, 2011

The hope of the Gospel is an amazing thing. In Hebrews 11:1 it says that faith is the substance of things hoped for... According to this scripture, hope is the foundation of faith. Psalms says, "Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the LORD his God." and in Psalms 119, "Thou art my hiding place and my shield: I hope in thy word." And in Psalms71:5, "For thou art my hope, O Lord GOD: thou art my trust from my youth." And again in Psalms130:5, "I wait for the LORD, my soul doth wait, and in his word do I hope."

The Bible has much to say about hope but we, in today's world, sometimes misinterpret the true biblical meaning of this word. A lot of times we tend to think of this hope as a wishful thinking kind of hope. Like sometimes we say, "I hope my mom comes over today or I hope I can make it to town before the store closes."

The true biblical definition of this word according to the Strong's Greek dictionary means: expectation of good, hope, in the Christian sense; joyful and confident expectation of eternal salvation.

The entire New Testament was originally written in Greek and it is very helpful to look up the definition of some of these words in a Greek/ English dictionary such as is found in the back of the Strong's Exhaustive Concordance. According to these definitions, hope is something that we can have a confident expectation of attaining that which we are expecting to accomplish.

One reason that we can have this kind of hope is because of what our hope is founded on. According to the above quoted verses our hope is in the Lord and in his Word. A person's word is no better than the person's ability to fulfill those words. Now we know that the Lord is able to do whatever he wants to and that He is all powerful. Paul said, "He that has begun a good work in you is able to complete it unto the day of Jesus Christ."

People, is our trust in the Lord and His finished work on the cross or is it based on our own works? If it is based on our own works, then it is just a wishful thinking kind of hope. But if our hope is in the Lord and His strength and power then we have the kind of hope that will endure unto the end.

• He is the one who created everything we can see, smell, taste, feel and hear.
• He is the eternal God who was and is and is to come.
• By him all things consist and in him we live and move and have our being.
• Even the very air that we breathe was created by him, and according to Colossians, everything is held together by Him.

This same God is the one who said that if we believe in Jesus as our Savior then we have eternal life. Do we truly believe this or do we think we can add something to that?

Peter said we have a living hope. Now if we have a living hope why do we still doubt?

We have a living hope because we have a living, resurrected Savior and King. He is able to save us to the uttermost, according to Hebrews 7:25, because he is a high priest after the order of Melchisedec and is seated at the right hand of the Father interceding for us.

According to Peter, His divine power has given unto us ALL things that pertain unto life and Godliness through the knowledge of Him that has called us to glory and virtue: whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these we might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. -2 Peter 1:3-4

When we try to add to what God has supplied us with, it is an abomination to him. We must get rid of all idols in our lives and put our hope in Him. This kind of hope will not make us ashamed but we will, like Paul wrote in Hebrews 6:17-20:

Wherein God, willing more abundantly to show unto the heirs of the promise the immutability of his counsel, confirmed it by an oath: That by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us: Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which entereth into that within the veil; Whither the forerunner is for us entered, even Jesus, made an high Priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec.

May God bless each and every one of you us as we grow in faith and in the full assurance of hope unto the end.

A fellow servant in Christ,

 

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