The Time-Tested Way to Lose All Hope
How hopeless people can enjoy a life full of hope.
At the start of a new year, hope peeks over the horizon once again.
I enjoy fresh starts because they bring hope. A new year, a new week, a new day - they are all so full of potential. We like potential because potential produces hope. Hope that the new year, week, or day will be better than the last. Hope that we might finally achieve our goals.
So with so much potential and hope, why are we constantly disappointed by these fresh starts?
The Time-Tested Way to Lose All Hope
You never want to feel hopeless - a hope-filled life is a life worth living.
Potential, along with a fresh start, is connected to time. Time will always be limited. As the year, week, or day nears its end - time is short, and potential disappears. As potential dries up and disappears, so does the hope attached to it. Hopelessness sets in, and you might begin to ask if your life is even worth living.
If your hope is attached to the time, you will find yourself feeling more and more hopeless as time passes.
The time-tested way to lose all hope is to connect your hope to time.
How Hopeless People Can Enjoy A Life Full of Hope
If hopelessness is connected to time, where do you think hope is found?
Christians have a “living hope” that is not connected to time.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. (1 Peter 1:3-5)
The Christian’s “living hope” is through “the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” Jesus has been raised from the dead, and He will never die again.
Therefore He is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them. (Hebrews 7:25)
The Christian life is hope-filled because our hope is not connected to time - it’s through the resurrection of Jesus - and He lives forever.
A Fresh Start Without End Equals Eternal Hope
Jesus Christ offers a fresh start through His resurrection.
Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. (Romans 6:3-4)
Those who have been baptized into Christ have been set free from sin (Romans 6:7) and given a new life - a fresh start. This fresh start by the resurrection of Jesus Christ gives us hope - eternal hope.
But now having been set free from sin, and having become slaves of God, you have your fruit to holiness, and the end, everlasting life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 6:22-23)
When hope is connected to time, it will always result in hopelessness.
When hope is founded upon Jesus and His resurrection, it results in hope which cannot be broken.
Eternal, living hope.
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