Skip to main content

Reason for The Hope

           But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, (I Peter 3:15)

          Quickly, if someone is your lord, he has authority over you. The moment you disobey a command or say “No,” to an order, you have rejected him as your lord. You’re a rebel… a traitor.  And we all do this, probably many times per day. That’s because we don’t really view the Father, Jesus Christ, or the Spirit as Lord, or God. Our fallen nature leads us to want to be on equal terms with God – if we are not “more equal.”

          Revering Christ as Lord both isn’t really the focus for today. Instead, let’s look at the part about always being prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give a reason for the hope that you have. The first prerequisite is that you have hope. You can’t give an answer to someone who asks for your reason for hope that you don’t have.

          Just to get the statement out of the way, I have as much trouble with hope as I do with faith. I think I have faith that Jesus has forgiven my sins and that I’m saved. I don’t think I have hope that such is the case. I’m not going to argue that point. I may have both, but in my mind, I have faith that something is, and I have hope that something will be. So, I have hope that God will lead me in the direction He wants me to go. I also have faith that He is leading me in the direction He wants me to go.

          With that as my example, the passage tells me to always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks me to give a reason for the hope that I have. So why do I have hope that God will lead me? An atheist friend of mine once mockingly suggested that I not jump off any buildings because of my faith. My answer was that every time I’ve jumped off this particular building, I have either landed on a fire escape, or on the roof of the next building. There is no reason for me to believe that jumping off the same building at the same place won’t result in  my landing on the fire escape or the roof of the next building. My hope may be in the future, but it’s based on what happened in the past.

          So, I can hope that God will lead and direct me, because He has done so in the past. Another reason I have to hope is that the one in whom I hope doesn’t work the way I would expect a figment of my imagination to work. He doesn’t work the way I want Him to work.

          Let’s move this from me to you. What reasons do you have to hope in anything that you happen to hope in? Comment below.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Saved?

  I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.” (John 10:28-30) “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, “I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’ ” (Matthew 7:21-23) Not at all! Let God be true, and every human being a liar. As it is written: “So that you may be proved right when you speak and prevail when you judge.” (Romans 3:4)   What conclusion do you draw when someone who was raised in a Christian family and church, perhaps even playing a significant role in a chur...
Post a Comment
Read more

Meditations of the Heart

  May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer. (Psalm19:14)           As I started writing this post, I noted that the meditations of my heart are all over the mental landscape, from a hub where eight superhighways come together to a lunar or nuclear landscape. Do you see my error? The moment I read the word meditation , I think about thoughts. But what’s described here is the meditations of our hearts ; our wills.           While the meditations of our minds may be all over the place, the meditations of our wills tend to be a little more stable by the time we are adults. We no longer tend to want to pursue the ten separate careers we did in any given day as children. Part of this is humble acceptance of reality. We come to understand that we can’t do it all. I think another part of it is disappointmen...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Shepherd!

                 “I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me— just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep . (John 10:14) God said to Moses, “I am who I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I am has sent me to you.’” (Genesis 3:14) The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he refreshes my soul. He guides me along the right paths     for his name’s sake. Even though I walk     through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil,     for you are with me; your rod and your staff,     they comfort me. (Psalm 23:1-4) For the Jews, it was politically incorrect to make claims about yourself as a teacher (or possibly as anything else.) Teachers were expected to take pride in the...
Post a Comment
Read more