Hope

"now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen" Hebrews 11:1
"so now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love" 1 Cor 13:13
the word "hope" is used so much in everyday life and its clear from the context in Scripture its not used the same way throughout the Word as we use it in the world. we "hope" it doesn't rain or "hope" we get to sleep in an extra 30 minutes or "hope" we can do or have or see lots of things. but the word used in the New Testament for hope is elpis, this word is used 54 times. This Greek word means "expectation of evil, fear or expectation of good, hope" Strong's concordance goes on to say "in the Christian sense, joyful & confident expectation of eternal salvation" (emphasis mine)
so this word HOPE it has a depth that i want to search out.
the thing i note most is that our hope is in eternal salvation. i often place hope in how God will provide for me or how God will do something. it seems easier to hope in His action for today, but the truth is, His action is what He calls us to hope in. But its the action that is far greater than His providing materials things. He calls us to hope in our salvation through Christ's death and resurrection. We hope in that we will never die. That though we die, we live.
Death no longer has a hold, so what have we to fear. Because if Jesus conquered death and we join with Him in death and resurrection then we too have conquered death. "no, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us" Romans 8:37
Paul's writings on God's care and provision for us are founded in the hope that comes in eternal life. That we do not have to guess whether or not we will be saved. We stand in confidence. And that is why Paul can write some crazy stuff. "behold, now is the favorable time; behold, now is the day of salvation. we put no obstacle in anyone's way, so that no fault may be found with our ministry, but as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: by great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger... as dying, and behold, we live...as having nothing, yet possessing everything" (emphasis mine). Jesus says that everything we need is eternal life, everything we need is him, because even if we lose our lives we gain. even if we die, we live. so there is nothing we could need except Him.
in a world where people die by the millions everyday because of hunger, war, poverty, violence, disease, and the like it seems insane that Jesus would say that He is all we need. it seems like we need health and food and shelter and protection, but Jesus says that we need him, because even with health, food, shelter, and protection, we are mortal and we will die and that everything in this place will pass. but that He remains, forever.