What is Hope?

      18 But the eyes of the LORD are on those who fear him,
         on those whose hope is in his unfailing love,
      19 to deliver them from death
         and keep them alive in famine.

      20 We wait in hope for the LORD;
         he is our help and our shield.
      21 In him our hearts rejoice,
         for we trust in his holy name.
      22 May your unfailing love be with us, LORD,
         even as we put our hope in you.


The New International Version (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011), Ps 33:18–22.

For the next three weeks I will be a student of Hope. I have placed my hope in many things over the years and some things have panned out and others have not. I am at a place in my life where God is dealing with some big things in me. I am a self righteous man who has hope in himself and his abilities. For this to change and for my hope to shift I have to study and learn to biblically apply hope. For the last few years I have been in a forge where God is driving my hope in man out of me. You see I may have spoke a good game, but on the inside I trusted in man. I have shown through my actions that I trust in man and his opinion more than Gods. This is a rough thing to know and understand. Now some amazing men have helped me and I am so glad they are in my life. I am not talking about that, I am dealing with a Daddy wound that has scarred me deeply. I have made a decision to deal with this wound and put it in proper perspective. I am going to learn to have Hope in Jesus and through Him God the Father. Below is a theology of hope that may help you as it did me.



In the Epistles the theology of hope is fully developed and becomes an explicit and prominent theme. As in the Old Testament, God himself is the Christian’s hope; he is “the God of hope” (Rom. 15:13; cf. 1 Tim. 4:10; 1 Pet. 1:21). But Paul also identifies Jesus Christ as the ground of hope (“Christ Jesus our hope,” 1 Tim. 1:1; cf. Eph. 1:12; 1 Thess. 1:3), the evidence of which is the resurrection (1 Cor. 15; 1 Pet. 1:3). The work of hope comes “by the power of the Holy Spirit” (Rom. 15:13; Gal. 5:5). Hope is produced through the witness of the written scriptures (Rom. 15:4), but the new covenant provides “a better hope” (Heb. 7:19) because of the promises inherent in the priesthood of Christ (6:18–19).

Allen C. Myers, The Eerdmans Bible Dictionary (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1987), 501.