HOPE DOES NOT FAIL US (44 OF 52)
Scripture: Romans 5:1-11
This content is part of a series.
Hope Does Not Fail Us (44 of 52)
Series: Discipleship Part Three
Christopher B. Harbin
Romans 5:1-11
''Don't lose hope.'' ''Don't get your hopes up.'' ''Hope is the last to die.'' ''When you have lost hope, you have lost everything.'' ''Hope springs eternal.'' Our society is filled with conflicting concepts about hope and its role in our lives. We talk about hope as what gets us out of the bed in the morning. We talk about hope as the secret sauce to achieving fame, wealth, and success. We talk about hope as tenuous and easily dashed. We speak of hope as having no basis outside of ourselves, tied to no external reality. Rarely do we speak of the basis of the hope we so glibly talk about. Why would we cling to hope if we never look at its foundation? What good is hope with no moorings?
When hope is merely a flight of fancy, it has little meaning. It might appear a wonderful thing. It may paint rainbows and unicorns. If it is not grounded in substance worthy of investing our lives, however, that hope is indeed pointless. It is doomed to failure from the start. There is, however, another kind of hope. There is a hope that does not and cannot fail us. It requires a different kind of footing.
Paul wrote of hope to the believers in Rome. This was no detached hope. He tied that hope to a secure foundation. He encapsulated that hope within the character, will, and purpose of God. He tied it to what God has done for us, the extent of God's initiatives taken on our behalf, for our well-being. He set this hope out as secure because of who God is, what God has done, and what God cares to continue doing. Hope built on God's character is altogether different from so much else we speak of as hope.
Martin Luther King Jr.'s most famous speech was about a dream. It was a vision of the hope he held dear. That dream, that hope, was not a detached reality that had no foundation in the realities of life. Indeed, it spoke of a reality that was at stark odds with his liv ...
Series: Discipleship Part Three
Christopher B. Harbin
Romans 5:1-11
''Don't lose hope.'' ''Don't get your hopes up.'' ''Hope is the last to die.'' ''When you have lost hope, you have lost everything.'' ''Hope springs eternal.'' Our society is filled with conflicting concepts about hope and its role in our lives. We talk about hope as what gets us out of the bed in the morning. We talk about hope as the secret sauce to achieving fame, wealth, and success. We talk about hope as tenuous and easily dashed. We speak of hope as having no basis outside of ourselves, tied to no external reality. Rarely do we speak of the basis of the hope we so glibly talk about. Why would we cling to hope if we never look at its foundation? What good is hope with no moorings?
When hope is merely a flight of fancy, it has little meaning. It might appear a wonderful thing. It may paint rainbows and unicorns. If it is not grounded in substance worthy of investing our lives, however, that hope is indeed pointless. It is doomed to failure from the start. There is, however, another kind of hope. There is a hope that does not and cannot fail us. It requires a different kind of footing.
Paul wrote of hope to the believers in Rome. This was no detached hope. He tied that hope to a secure foundation. He encapsulated that hope within the character, will, and purpose of God. He tied it to what God has done for us, the extent of God's initiatives taken on our behalf, for our well-being. He set this hope out as secure because of who God is, what God has done, and what God cares to continue doing. Hope built on God's character is altogether different from so much else we speak of as hope.
Martin Luther King Jr.'s most famous speech was about a dream. It was a vision of the hope he held dear. That dream, that hope, was not a detached reality that had no foundation in the realities of life. Indeed, it spoke of a reality that was at stark odds with his liv ...
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