Possibly one of the best natural biblical pictures of hope is that found in 1 Corinthians 9:10. This verse speaks of the farmer and the reaper. “Or does He say it altogether for our sakes? For our sakes, no doubt, this is written, that he who plows should plow in hope, and he who threshes in hope should be partaker of his hope.”
We can relate to this because most, if not all, of us work in hope of a future paycheck. Maybe some of you are fortunate enough to get paid before you do the job. Most of us work in hope of a future reward.
To take this to the opposite extreme, let’s see our situation when we were lost and had no hope. In Ephesians 2:11-12 we see a five-fold description of our condition before we gave our lives to Christ. “That at that time (when we were lost) you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.” In our lost condition we were …
- Without Christ
- Aliens from the commonwealth of Israel
- Strangers from the covenants of promise
- Without hope
- Without God in the world
A person without Christ and without hope has absolutely no expectation of anything good happening in the future. We know this is true because of where they are headed. Many if us can remember the dead-end we were on when we were lost. We had no hope.
The word for hope (elpis) is found 48 times in 15 different New Testament books. Over the next few days we will consider several of the ways “hope” is used in the New Testament. Walk today in the confidence that our hope is in Jesus. Tomorrow we will see The Foundation of Our Hope. Have a great day!