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Q. What is Christian hope pinned on?

A. It is trust in a Person and the promises He makes. God promises three main things:

1. He promises to be with us even when life tells us that He's abandoned us.

When life feels as if God has left us and forgotten us, hope is the energy to wait for Him to come back. It gives us reason to ask what we want from Him when He comes back. It develops eyes for signs of His coming and often sees them quite close to home.

2. He promises that His children will live after they die.

We hope for heaven only when we wish to go there and can imagine ourselves there. One way to know whether you wish to go to heaven is to wish for the best God can offer us here and now. One way to imagine ourselves in heaven is to imagine ourselves as the persons we're meant to be. Hope for heaven is "sure and certain" in the sense of implicit trust in God's promise of heaven.

3. He promises to make our world work right again.

God promised that He won't desert His world and that His creation has a fine future. That's why we believe that the ultimate destiny of His children isn't the disembodied life of heaven, but an embodied life on God's good earth. God gave us a sign of his ability to remake His creation and give the world a happy ending when He raised Jesus from the grave.

God becomes our fallback hope. He keeps our hopes alive. His story will have a happy ending.

Lewis Smedes was professor of theology and ethics at Fuller Seminary, Pasadena, Calif.

Prayer for the Week

Dear God, I thank You that what is unseen is eternal. Give me the eyes of faith to see reality.

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