Our Anchor!

"We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain, where Jesus, who went before us, has entered on our behalf." (Hebrews 6: 19-20)

Hope! What a word! Life, in order to have real meaning, must be tied to something beyond mere physical existence. Hope is our anchor which is secured in heaven itself, where Jesus has gone "before us." Martin Luther called "no hope" the two most dreadful words in any language. What breath is to the physical body, hope is to the human spirit.

God makes a promise; then faith believes it; hope anticipates it; patience awaits it. Socrates once said, "To ground hope on a false supposition is like trusting to a weak anchor." Will your anchor hold? Yes, if it is secured on what God has said and promised. A Christian devoted to God and the principles He has taught us has a reason for his hope, and a hope for his reason. It is significant that in the writings of the apostle Paul alone, the noun "hope" appears twenty-eight times, and in verbal form twenty-one times.

"Those who hope for no other life are dead even for this one." Hope has been described as the medicine that prevents heart sickness and the tree that produces life. Hopelessness paralyzes energy and neutralized skill. Hope keeps us alive, gives us impetus and incentive. You have heard it said, perhaps many times, "Where there is life, there is hope." Invert that, "Where there is hope, there is life." It keeps our eyes on the ultimate goal.

"Hope, like the gleaming taper's light,
Adorns and cheers our way;
And still, as darker grows the night,
Emits a brighter ray."

- Charles Cash