With so few Christmas parties and concerts this year due to COVID, my desire is that these brief thoughts each day during Advent continue to focus your thoughts on HOPE.
Over the past few days, we have seen the negative side of hope: the results of false hopes, false assumptions about hope and false sources of hope. Have you ever noticed that no one ever hopes for something negative like famines, floods or plagues?
Now it is time to turn our thoughts to the positive features of hope. Hopes are always set upon something positive, something we think will benefit us or those we love in some way. Children hope for new toys at Christmas, toys in packages that they will rip open on the 25th. For believers, however, the promise of eternal life with Christ is the greatest hope that we have. This hope is not based on wishful thinking but firmly grounded in the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Heb. 6:9 tells us, “We have this hope as an anchor for our lives. It is safe and sure, and passes through the curtain of the heavenly temple into the innermost sanctuary.” and in 1 Pet. 1:21, we learn that Jesus’ resurrection is the basis of our hope: “Through him you believe in God, who raised him from death and gave him glory; and so your faith and hope are fixed on God.”
Why not find some small item that symbolizes your hope in the resurrection, wrap it in a box with Christmas paper, and put it under the tree? When you open it on Christmas Day, explain to those around you how it represents your hope of eternal life with Christ.
