Hope in God’s promises is a necessary ‘essential’

There are many different facets of life that are extremely essential. Essential is defined in the dictionary in the following way: absolutely necessary, extremely important and indispensable.

For instance, water and oxygen are essential to the survival of all life on earth.

The ozone layer, which is a gas in our atmosphere, is essential because it protects everything living on earth from harmful ultraviolet (UV) rays from the sun. If the ozone layer did not exist, it would be very difficult for anything to survive on the earth.

Likewise, food is essential, but not all types of food are necessarily essential to live. For example, many of us enjoy fast food, candy and other junk food, but the truth is we can live without them.

When it comes to our physical bodies we have essential organs such as our brain, heart and lungs without which we would die.

Without question blood is an essential element in our physical bodies. The Scriptures tell us that the life of the body is in the blood. This is why doctors, dietitians, personal trainers and others are diligent in helping us to take better care of our bodies through proper diet and exercise. However, we have parts of our body like our appendix and gallbladder that we can live without.

As you can see, there are essentials in life, but not everything in life is considered essential. However, the things that are essential need to be protected.

Due to the current situation with COVID-19 in our nation and around the world, hopelessness seems to be at an all-time high. People are concerned about their health and the economy, and as a result some individuals have lost hope of a better tomorrow.

I’ve said all of this to tell you that biblically there are some things that are considered to be absolutely essential for our spiritual, mental and emotional well-being. Those things are faith, hope and love. Time will not allow me to expound upon all three so I am going to focus on one of the essentials: hope.

There are no hopeless situations; there are only men who have grown hopeless about them.

The truth of the matter is, regardless of how bad things may be, it is possible to get your hopes up for a brighter future. In the New Testament, hope means to anticipate good things, to have a favorable expectation and to be optimistic.

Hope is not wishful thinking, but rather it is confident expectation in the promises of God. In other words, those who are filled with hope expect to see the fulfillment of God’s promises in their life.

When a person is full of hope it changes their perspective about their life.

Proverbs 13:12 (NLT) says, “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a dream fulfilled is a tree of life.” According to this scripture, it is unhealthy for an individual to live without hope. In other words, a lack of hope makes the heart sick. With that said I encourage you to keep your hopes up no matter how complex and difficult your situation becomes.

This crisis will pass!