“I hope to get an A on my midterm exam.” “I hope I get this job.” “I hope no one finds out about this.”
We use the word hope today completely differently than how it is used in the Bible. When you or I speak of hope, we typically are expressing optimism about something that is uncertain. But when we say that we have hope in Christ, it means that we know for sure—beyond the shadow of a doubt—that Jesus will come through. From the believer’s perspective, hope is something of certainty we look forward to. It is living in constant expectation.
When Paul speaks of it in Scripture, he knows the message of hope is something that will get his readers through the day. How else could he himself have faced the opposition, persecution and hardship that his life in Christ presented to him? Yet Paul’s message focuses on things eternal, rather than the struggles of this world.
Here in the 21st century we can fix our eyes on things unseen because our hope in Christ is the only way we can be confident in this life and the next.