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“While there’s life, there’s hope!” That saying of Cicero, the ancient Roman, is still quoted today. Like most adages, it has an element of truth, but no guarantee of certainty. It is not the fact of life that determines hope, but the faith of life. “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for…” (Hebrews 11:1). A believer in Jesus Christ has a “living hope” (I Peter 1:3). 

Why then do we live in a world filled with people who have no hope? According to statistics, over 70 percent of the population have a negative outlook toward life. The famed Sir Winston Churchill once stated: “I am an old man. I have lived a long time. I have never seen days like these. I am tired of it all. I see no hope for the future.” Jesus said that in the last days “men’s hearts would fail them for fear” (Luke 21:26).

Briefly, let us look at some things that are hope killers:  

• Financial distress - “But as for me, my feet had almost slipped... when I saw the prosperity of the wicked” (Psalm 73:2-3).                                                             

• Sickness and disease - Job is an example.   

• Trouble - “It is better for me to die than to live” (Jonah 4:8).  

• Rebellious children – “Rebekah said to Isaac, ‘I am weary of my life because of these Hittite women’” (Genesis 27:46).  

• Unfulfilled dreams – “Hope deferred makes the heart sick” (Proverbs 13:12).  

• Unanswered prayer – Daniel’s prayer hindered (Daniel 10:12-13).

• Bitterness toward God – Job’s wife: “Curse God and die” (Job 2:9).

• Failure, sin and backsliding – Paul: “O wretched man that I am” (Romans 7:24).

The cynical editor and write H.L. Mencken once defined hope as “a pathological belief in the occurrence of the impossible.” But that definition does not agree with the New Testament meaning of the word. True Christian hope is more than “hope so.” It is confident assurance of future glory and blessing. The Apostle Peter describes it as a “living hope.” 

“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In His great mercy He has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (1 Peter 1:3).

It is not difficult to follow Peter’s train of thought. Everything begins with salvation, our personal relationship to God through Christ. If we know Christ as our Saviour, then we have hope. Why does Peter describe it as a living hope? It is because our hope is grounded on the living Word of God (1:23) and is made possible by the living Son of God who arose from the dead. As believers, we have a living hope because we trust a living Christ.

This confident hope gives us encouragement and strength for daily living. It does not put us in a rocking chair to complacently wait for the return of Jesus Christ. Instead, it places us in the marketplace, on the battlefield, where we keep on going even when the burdens are heavy and the battles are hard. Hope is not a sedative; it is a shot of adrenaline, a blood transfusion. Our hope moves us forward.

“Christ in you, the hope of glory.” Colossians 1:27