Lesson 8
For many people the word “hope” is not something that has much certainty to it. Well-known idioms like “hoping against hope” simply mean, “to hope with little reason or justification.” Thus when the Bible talks about hope some people immediately conclude it is advocating some form of wishful thinking or behaviour – like betting on the lottery when everyone knows full well that the odds are a million to one against winning. But isn’t this what the Bible means when it encourages us to have “hope” in the Lord? In fact, it is just the opposite. The Biblical definition of “hope” is “confident expectation.” Hope is a firm assurance regarding things that may at the present appear unclear and unknown. The foundation of Biblical hope resides in God’s commitment to keep his word. After Adam and Eve’s tragic fall in the beginning, God reinstalled hope in their hearts by promising he would bring about a way of restoration (Gen 3:15). He renewed that promise with Abraham and his descendants, and true to his word he set in motion the means of that restoration in the life of Christ. He calls upon us now to walk in the footsteps of our spiritual forbears trusting that he will never break his promise!