Where is Your Hope?

O. T. #1141  "Where is Your Hope?"Jan. 26, 2017
Job 17

LET IT GLOW

My days are over.
My hopes have disappeared.
My heart's desires are broken.
Where then is my hope?
Can anyone find it? (verses 11 and 15, NLT)

Can anyone find Job's hope? It has disappeared and broken. What about yours? Has you hope disappeared? I tell you, right now you can find it today. Read on dear one to find your hope.

The meaning of hope, used in verse 15 and in the Hebrew language, means a cord, as an attachment; expectancy; thing that I long for.

Someone throw Job a rope before he falls off the cliff. Throw him a lifesaver before he drowns. Lasso him and bring him back to the corral.
In what is Job's expectancy? What is the thing he longs for?

We have read the word hope ten times before this chapter, which have other meanings than above:

• Eliphaz said it in 3:6, Is not this fear, thy confidence, thy hope, and the uprightness of thy ways?
• Again in 5:16, So the poor hath hope, and iniquity stoppeth her mouth.
• Job answered Eliphaz in 6:11a, What is my strength that I should hope?
• Again in 7:6, My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle, and are spent without hope.
• Bildad said in 8:13-14, So the paths of all that forget God; and the hypocrite's hope shall perish; Whose hope shall be cut off, and whose trust shall be a spider's web.
• Zophar said in 11:18a,20, And thou shalt be secure because there is hope. But the eyes of the wicked shall fall, and they shall not escape, and their hope shall be as the giving up of the ghost.
• Job speaks to God, in 14:7.19, There is hope of a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again, and that the tender branch thereof will not cease. The water wears the stone: thou washest away the things which grow out of the dust of the earth; and thou destroyest the hope of man.

In what is your hope, friend? What is the thing for which you long?

LET IT GROW

Here are a few of the many passages using the word hope in the New Testament:

• Paul told the Pharisees and Sadducees, in Acts 22:6, I am a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee: of the hope and resurrection of the dead I am called in question.
• Romans 8:24, Paul said, For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for?
• Romans 15:13, Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost.
• Ephesians 1:18, The eyes of your understanding be enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints.
• Ephesians 4:4, There is one body, and one Spirit even as ye are called in one hope of your calling.
• 1 Peter 1:21, Paul speaks of Christ, Who by Him do believe in God, that raised Him up from the dead, and gave Him glory; that your faith and hope be in God.

We can't see hope. We can't see Jesus or God, but we can place our hope in Them. He is the God of hope. We can receive all joy and peace as we believe in Him. He is the hope of our calling-Christian.
Is your faith and hope in God or something else? Other things pass away, but our God lives forever. Likewise, we will live forever.
So if you can't find your hope today, ask Jesus to help you find it. Ask Jesus to be your hope.

LET IT GO

Place my hope in Christ, the resurrected King and Savior.
Hold onto my hope in Jesus.
Keep my faith and hope in God.