"...always be
ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for
the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear; having
a good conscience, that when they defame you as evildoers, those who revile your
good conduct in Christ may be ashamed."
1 Peter 3:15
Biblical
HOPE is a gift from God -- given to those who have put their
faith in Him and received His Life through His Spirit. Oswald
Chambers, the beloved author of My Utmost for His Highest,
explained it well:
"'To give a reason for the hope that is in you" is not at all the same
things as convincing by rational argument why that hope is in us.
The
work of the Spirit of God in us transcends reason, but never contradicts
it. And when a Christian says 'the reason I am so-and -so is because I
have received the Holy Spirit,' or 'I have received from God something
which has made this possible,' it doesn't contradict reason. It
transcends it, and is an answer concerning the hope that is in you.
"The line we are continually apt to be caught by is that of
argumentative reasoning out why we are what we are. We can never do
that, but we can always say why the hope is in us.
"Reason is the faculty of mind by which man draws conclusions. Every
man is always striving after a true expression of what he is.
When a man
is born again, his personality become alive to God as the Source of
inspiration. Paul's words
"It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives
in me" are the expression of the only worthy rationalism....
"As long as we use the image of our
own salvation, our experience, the image of our feelings, or
answers to prayer, we shall never begin to understand what
Paul meant when he said, 'Christ lives
in me.' The exercise
of man's essential reason is drawing on God as the Source of
life."
[1]
Those who don't know God can't
understand the wonders of the hope that God has put in our
hearts. It makes no sense to the secular mind! The world's
finite reasoning and "rational" understanding clashes with the
reality of God's plan and eternal Kingdom. The key to
understanding -- God's Holy Spirit -- is missing!
"Blessed be the God
and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His
abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope
through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an
inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does not
fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the
power of God through faith for salvation ready to be
revealed in the last time.
"In this you greatly rejoice, though
... you have been grieved by various trials, that the
genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold
that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to
praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ..."
1 Peter 1:3-7
"For our citizenship
is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior...." Philippians 3:20
1. Oswald Chambers,
Oswald Chambers Daily Devotional Bible (Thomas Nelson Publisher
, 1992, pp. 1116-7). Chambers was born in Aberdeen,
Scotland in 1874. He founded the Bible Training College in
London in 1911, During WW1, he served and encouraged European
soldiers fighting in Egypt. Two years later, he was dying of a
ruptured appendix but refused to accept any hospital bed that
could be
needed by
wounded soldiers.