Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. -Romans 5:1
Hope is one of those subjects that we as believers ought to come back to most often. Without hope a person has nothing to live for. Hope drives us forward. Hope keeps us motivated to keep going and keep trying even when we feel like giving up. The Scripture teaches that since we have been brought into a personal relationship with Christ that we are now at peace with God. I am sure you have heard it said that someone has made peace with God. The implication is that we settle anything that exists between us and God which might hinder either our relationship with Him or our very salvation. For some, they have spent their lives in rebellion against God. They have rejected God, never sought Him, pushed Him away, and refused to believe. But as they reached the end of life, or faced some major life crisis, they made peace with God. They confessed belief, confessed their sin, and received Christ as Savior.
There might also be believers who have kept something in their hearts for a long time. Whatever it was, it caused problems in their relationship with the Lord. Finally they could bear it no longer, so they confessed it to God and made peace with Him. The hope that God will offer forgiveness, compassion, and mercy is a powerful force isn’t it? That hope leads us to seek to settle with God whatever it is that stands between us and Him. Faith in Christ grants us access into the grace of God. We then enter into an entirely new understanding of what constitutes true hope. We rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
If we are going to truly rejoice, then we must have something to rejoice about. We typically don’t rejoice when something bad happens, but rather we tend to rejoice over the positive and happy occurrences of life. However, the Scripture says to rejoice in the Lord always (Philippians 4:4). In Christ we don’t have to wait around for something good to happen, instead we can rejoice in all circumstances all of the time. Such rejoicing stems from that blessed hope we have in the Lord Jesus. Hope that is based not on human design, but rather true hope in Christ which is based upon the divine power of the Almighty.
No matter how dark, desperate, and hopeless life may seem right now, never forget that in Jesus Christ there is hope. That blessed hope is certain, secure, and readily available to all who believe.
