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Having Hope
Hope is the great motivator. The athlete trains with hope of victory. The workman labors for the hope of pay. Sir Edmund Hillary climbed Mt. Everest in hope of being the first to the top. A boy picks up the phone to call a girl with hope she’ll say yes to dinner and a movie.
But when we remove hope we necessarily remove motivation. Some options are simply not open to us. No matter how much I might desire the position, I will never be king of England (or, alas, of the world). Thus I don’t expend any energy in that direction. But all too often, we lose hope (and motivation) because we convince ourselves that victory or success is not an option because it’s not easy. We lose confidence in ourselves perhaps due to setbacks and stumbling blocks.
There was a danger for the first century Christians becoming discouraged at that greatest of all challenges: death. The return of Jesus was believed to be an imminent event, and when Christians began to die before His return it became discouraging. If we are serving Christ but death claims us anyway then what is the point?
Paul countered their concerns with words of encouragement and explanation. “But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore encourage one another with these words.” (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18)
Paul reinforced that fundamental to the Christian life is hope. Even death, that which stops any other pursuit, does not stand as a road block for the Christian on our path to God. When our loved ones in Christ die we live in firm hope that not only will they will “rise first” when Christ returns, but that we “will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.”
Rather than being discouraged by the death of loved ones, and even our own certain deaths should the world continue, Paul reminds us that death cannot extinguish hope for the Christian. It is the world—those without Christ—who can have no hope. Therefore, let us “on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 3:14)? By Alan Cornett
