Our Hope

The Swiss theologian Emil Brunner once said, “What oxygen is for the lungs, such is hope for the meaning of life.”

You can live several weeks without food. You can live a few days without water. But you cannot live life without hope.

No wonder, then, that the word “hope” occurs well over 100 times in the Bible. Hope is essential to real living.

As vital as hope is, by its very nature, it must have a basis. We cannot build on hope itself. Instead, genuine hope needs someone or something else to provide a foundation. If it doesn’t have something on which to stand, hope soon evaporates into wishful thinking.

According to the Bible, Christian hope does not speak of mere desire, but of real expectation.  Christians are not merely hopeful people in a general sense. Instead, they hope for--anticipate and expect--certain things.

But what exactly are those things? For what do Christians hope? I want to talk about that next week.