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PROGRAM D-8311
What have you been doing to unleash hope in your life? Perhaps you’ve never really thought about unleashing hope. But without hope, life is. . .well, hopeless.
If you counted the number of times you talked about hope in a given day, I think you’d be surprised at how often your conversation—your thoughts—turn to hoping for something. Whether it’s a trivial hope or a deep heart-felt hope, we are often in “hope mode.”
Hope is the foundational building block for our lives. I’m not talking about the kind of wishful thinking we engage in—we hope it won’t rain today, we hope we get a raise, and things like that. I’m talking about hope that is powerful, founded on God’s Word, and anchored in Jesus Christ. A hope that is sure. What do you need to do on a daily basis to build that kind of hope into your life?
There’s a very well-known verse in 1 Corinthians 13 that says, “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love” (I Corinthians 13:13).
We talk and think a lot about faith and love. We hear many sermons on faith and love. We know we need to build our faith and learn to love better. But how often have you talked about hope? Did you ever hear a sermon on hope or go to a Bible study on hope? Have you ever intentionally worked at building your hope, growing in your hope, and becoming a more hope-filled person? Yet, God says it’s one of the three things that remain. Therefore, it should have a place of importance in our lives, don’t you think? God places a high value on hope—so should we.
The truth is, we live in a world that systematically and regularly crushes hope, does it not? There are any number of ways that your hopes can be dashed—things often beyond your control. Trivial things—you baked a cake and it fell flat, the weather ruined your plans, someone failed to fulfill a promise—to the long-term hope crushers—death, divorce, infertility, rejection, loss of job—and the list goes on.
Thankfully, as Christ-followers, we have the power to build our hope on a foundation that will withstand whatever hope-crushers come our way.