Hope is a Person

In our previous devotion, we discussed how the Lord works through tragedy. While we don’t want to walk through pain, the experience produces perseverance, and this perseverance paves the way to hope.
           
We’ve touched on the subject of hope as it is one of the most notable topics for the season of Christmas. Jesus coming to earth is the very picture of hope coming to humanity. He is the hero in the form of an infant, sent to us as the greatest gift ever received.
           
We often think of hope as an idea—an abstract rather than a person. Fear is an abstract. Death is an abstract. Anxiety and depression and loneliness are abstracts. The Devil is a master of these things, but they are only tools.

Hope is different. The Word tells us, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In His great mercy He has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade” (1 Peter 1:3-4).

Jesus is our living hope. He became hope for us because we needed more than an abstract hope—we needed a tangible hope that would swallow up darkness, leaving death in the dust.

How many times in life do we feel like we’ve lost all hope?

There are bound to be seasons where we feel this way, but when we feel no comfort of hope, we are still under His grace. Hope is not just a feeling—it’s a person. If we had to feel hopeful in order to have hope, then we might spend our whole lives searching for a feeling that resembles excitement, but chasing that feeling is not the cure for despair. Isaiah says, “but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint” (40:31). It’s not about a feeling. It’s about trusting the Father.

When you feel like you’ve lost hope, remember that you never really lose hope because hope found you. If you are a child of God, you have a living, breathing hope within you—one that’s alive and ever present, and His name is Jesus.