Colossians 1:3-6a

Hope's Value

There was a song in an old movie that spoke of an ant with high hopes. Everyone knows "an ant can't," the song expresses, "move a rubber tree plant." Then comes the refrain, "But he had high hopes.” The listener is left with the picture of a hope-filled ant really moving a rubber tree plant, rather than being frustrated by an immovable object, or being crushed by its weight on his back. "Can't" is quickly erased from our minds. Hope is seen overcoming the impossible.

The apostle Paul, writing to Christians, expresses unending thanks to God for the "faith and love that springs from the hope that is stored up for you in heaven and that you have already heard about in the Word of truth, the gospel."

Faith, hope and love! You can't have one without the other two. Paul wrote to the Corinthians, "Now these three remain: faith, hope and love" (1 Corinthians 13:13). Try removing a leg from a three-legged stool and you'll have nothing to stand on. So it is with these. If you have no hope, your faith will not stand; your love will not endure. Faith and love in the hearts of Christians spring up from hope of heaven promised us in the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The despairing gloom of sin’s dark clouds that overshadow this world in which we live are swept away to let in the light of the Son because he has given us hope. He endured the punishment for our sins. He rose victorious over death. He defeated Satan and opened heaven for us.

Now nothing, not even death, can steal our bright future because our hope is stored up for us already in heaven.

Maybe an ant can't move a rubber tree plant, but our Lord Jesus accomplishes the impossible! In him, we have received the highest of hopes!