A Living Hope

<p>A LIVING HOPE </p> <p>1Corinthians 13:13 So now faith, hope, and love abide (remain, continue eternally), these three; but the greatest of these is love. The greatest of these is love – beginning with God’s love for us, because it causes the faith and the hope to exist. God’s love is the beginning and end of all things. That is the source of the hope that we can live in at all times. That is the reality of a living hope.</p> <p>Everybody needs some kind of hope Everybody on the planet goes through difficult circumstances and situations of uncertainty and danger and loss, and some people make it through better than others. Those who do best in coming through these experiences are those who have clung on to some kind of hope. </p> <p>So where do people generally find this regular kind of hope?  The answer is they find something or someone, perhaps even themselves, to believe in, and our natural skills and experience can give us hope or confidence, for a while at least. And in this world there are many random things on offer to believe in and it can seem like a guessing game because the certainty of a person’s hope depends upon the reliability and credibility of what they believe in, and nothing in this world is certain, or lasts forever. There are also superstitious and religious teachings that Paul cautions the Church about, to not be ‘tossed to and fro and carried about by every wind of teaching, by human cunning, or devices {the word for that is kubeia = rolling the dice – what are your chances with this one?}… Ephesians 4:13) Some new method on the internet maybe, about how to get God to answer your prayer – These things just lead to disappointment, and there’s too much of that. I believe that the need that God desires to meet in each of us, is to be drawn closer to him - rather than just for a sincere cause - no matter how righteous it may seem to that person. (We will get to prayer later) </p> <p>A certain hope However for a Christian, life cannot be a random guessing game. Our hope is based on