Our Anchor of Hope

Welcome to today's encouragement from Our Daily Bread. Our reading titled, Our Anchor of Hope, was written by Karen Wong. I held up a picture of people sleeping under pieces of cardboard in a dim alley.

What do they need? I asked my sixth grade Sunday school class. Food, someone said. Money, said another. A safe place, a boy said thoughtfully.

Then one girl spoke up. Hope. Hope is expecting good things to happen, she explained.

I found it interesting that she talked about expecting good things when, due to challenges, it can be easy not to expect good things in life. The Bible nevertheless speaks of hope in a way that agrees with my student. If faith is confidence in what we hope for, we who have faith in Jesus can expect good things to happen. What is this ultimate good that believers in Christ can hope for with confidence? The promise of entering his rest. For believers, God's rest includes his peace, confidence of salvation, reliance on his strength, and assurance of a future heavenly home. The guarantee of God and the salvation Jesus offers is why hope can be our anchor, holding us fast in times of need.

The world needs hope, indeed. God's true and certain assurance that throughout good and bad times, he'll have the final say and won't fail us. When we trust in him, we know that he'll make all things right for us in his time.

Today's Our Daily Bread devotional scripture reading is from Hebrews chapter 6, verses 16 through 20. People swear by someone greater than themselves, and the oath confirms what is said and puts an end to all argument. Because God wanted to make the unchanging nature of his purpose very clear to the heirs of what was promised, he confirmed it with an oath. God did this so that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to take hold of the hope set before us may be greatly encouraged. We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain where our forerunner, Jesus, has entered on our behalf.

He has become a high priest forever in the order of Melchizedek. Let's pray. Dear God, our hope in you is firm and secure, not because our faith is strong, but because you're faithful to do as you've promised. Thank you for giving us reason to hope, Lord. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Thanks for listening today. My name is Joyce Dinkins, and today's encouragement was provided by Our Daily Bread Ministries.