Why do you believe? What reason would you give if someone asked?
Would that reason make sense to someone who didn’t believe or would it only sound good to those who already have put their faith in Jesus Christ?
Peter tells the believers that they should be ready to make a defense to anyone who asks for the reason they have hope (1 Peter 3:15). Now I don’t know about you but how many people have ever asked you about the hope you have? Do people think they already know why? Do they even understand that Jesus has given us hope or do they think He gave us a way to avoid the “f” word? I don’t know, I just ask.
Like so many biblical statements this is one that can easily fit whatever pet doctrine or belief you have. This becomes be ready to give a defense of why you don’t use instruments, why you believe we will be raptured and the list could go on.
Is that healthy? Is that part of the problem? Do we understand hope?
Whenever I ask myself why I come back to creation. I need absolutes. The problem is that what many people rely on doesn’t seem like absolutes but arbitrary. As a kid growing up I had a real hard time with a God who was consumed with the number of times I took a pinch of cracker who obsessed over the frequency but didn’t seem to be bothered that we took it out of some fancy stainless still plate with a paper doily on the bottom.
It was called truth and I was told I should defend it but I must confess that if that was truth and that was what kept the world together it didn’t fit my reality.
I wonder if people struggle with truth today not because of truth but because of what so many have called truth?
In the end I believe because the Bible does the best job of telling me why everything is how it is, broken and damaged. It does the best job of explaining why no matter how hard I try my relationships are not always right and my actions aren’t always noble. It explains why, even though I can’t fix it, I long for its repair. It always points to Jesus.
In the end I figured out that it explains why I have hope because I believe a day will come when everything is fixed and made new, not just because the Bible says it is so but because creation says it is so and the Bible agrees. Not because I have better facts, truth transcends all religions, but because Jesus has won and promised repair. Repair of myself and creation. A repair I long for but can never consummate. A longing that points to the reality of Jesus Christ.
God was God long before my English Standard Version was published and he will be God after the next new translation hits the bookshelves. Hope has much more depth than whether or not you and I agree on the book of Revelation.
Hope is what our world needs and yet who looks to the church for hope anymore? Entertainment? I don’t know, assistance? Maybe but what about hope?
Why do you have hope? Do we do a good job sharing hope? If not what should we do differently?
