“Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.” – Hebrews 11:1 (NIV)
At the root of the Christian faith is hope. Hope and faith are inextricably connected and tied together.
In theory, this sounds great and seems obvious. But in reality, this is much more difficult to apply and live out. Most of us would admit that there are times when we’ve struggled to have real hope. And because of that, it’s likely our faith has suffered or struggled when we’ve lost hope.
Clearly, if we’re going to grow in faith and remain faithful to God, then it’s important that we have hope. And it’s important that we keep our hope through life’s difficulties. We’ll have to learn how to see when we cannot see, believe when we struggle to understand and sustain our hope when there is no evidence to hope.
While this is not “easy” to do, the good news is that it is possible! Our faith is strengthened when we have hope that is anchored in Jesus and not our circumstances. Through Christ and because of Christ, we always have reason to hope. And this month we’re going to discover how we can experience this hope every day of our lives!