"What a God we have! And how fortunate we are to have him, this Father of our Master Jesus! Because Jesus has been raised from the dead, we've been given a brand-new life and have everything to live for." 1 peter 1:3
Our hope is centered completely around the fact that no matter what we are going through in life, no matter the trial, the suffering, the darkness, we serve a God who has conquered all of that in his life and continued to put it to death once and for all on the cross. Sin was defeated on the cross. Hope came in the resurrection! Because we have a God that not only died for us and became the punishment for our sin, we have a hope of living eternally with HIM! That is joy enough for us. But God didn't stop there, He wrote the next chapter.
The next miracle came when He brought us fullness of joy. The resurrection! He not only died for us, He rose from the dead and brought with him the hope that we live for now! This is what we live for. Until we get to step foot into our eternal kingdom when He returns, He allows us to have a taste of it here on earth. Now that is joy!
Why do we stumble, why do we fail? Our hope is not in Christ Jesus and His resurrection. Do we still consider Him dead? His power useless? We take it upon ourselves, and we fail every single time. Our power is useless and dead, unless it comes from the resurrected Lord!
Christopher Reeve once said, "Once you choose hope, anything is possible." I say that once you choose to put your hope IN CHRIST, anything is possible. Hope is something that comes from the nearness of God. You can hope in something that you trust, but how can you trust someone you do not know? The more you get to know God through time spend with Him daily, the more you trust Him. Your hope is placed in the ones you trust.
We see hope differently than the world. We see hope being in God alone for we trust that whatever He has planned is for our good and His glory. He is going to carry us through no matter what. The world's hope is found in things and people that can leave us and die.
This is why Peter challenges the followers to "set apart Christ as Lord in your heart, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you..." Easter weekend is a time for us to show the world the hope we live for everyday, Christ and His resurrection.
But when someone who needs joy in their life, they need a little hope to keep them going, if they look at me, can they find the source of that joy and hope? Or do they see someone who doesn't even believe in the hope they proclaim?
