I held up a picture of people sleeping under pieces of cardboard in a dim alley. “What do they need?” I asked my Sunday school class. “Food,” someone said. “Money,” said another. “A safe place,” a boy said thoughtfully. Then one girl spoke up: “Hope.”
“Hope is expecting good things to happen,” she explained. I found it interesting that she talked about “expecting” good things when, due to challenges, it can be easy not to expect good things in life. The Bible nevertheless speaks of hope in a way that agrees with my student. If “faith is confidence in what we hope for” (Hebrews 11:1), we who have faith in Jesus can expect good things to happen.
What is this ultimate good that believers in Christ can hope for with confidence?—“the promise of entering his rest” (4:1). For believers, God’s rest includes His peace, confidence of salvation, reliance on His strength and assurance of a future heavenly home. The guarantee of God and the salvation Jesus offers is why hope can be our anchor, holding us fast in times of need (6:18–20). The world needs hope, indeed: God’s true and certain assurance that throughout good and bad times, He’ll have the final say and won’t fail us. When we trust in Him, we know that He’ll make all things right for us in His time.
By Karen Huang
REFLECT & PRAY
How does the Bible encourage and give you hope and confidence? What are some things you can thank God for?
Dear God, my hope in You is firm and secure, not because my faith is strong, but because You’re faithful to do as You’ve promised.
SCRIPTURE INSIGHT
The author of Hebrews is never identified. Scholars suggest Paul or even Barnabas, Luke, Clement, or Apollos. But no matter, the author clearly understood that his readers needed perseverance to face trials and persecution. Throughout the book, readers are encouraged to endure and hold fast to Christ (2:1–4; 3:7–4:13; 5:11–6:2). And in 10:39, they’re reminded that as believers in Jesus they “do not belong to those who shrink back and are destroyed, but to those who have faith and are saved.” Then in chapter 11, known as the “Hall of Faith,” the author commends the many men and women of the Bible who lived by faith and sometimes died because of it. Because of their witness and example, believers in Jesus are prompted to “run with perseverance the race marked out for [them]” (12:1). And he bolsters them with God’s promise: “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you” (13:5).
Alyson Kieda
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