My husband and I spent most of the 1990’s watching Seinfeld. (Anyone else?!) In one of my favorite episodes, Jerry arrives at the rental car counter and learns they ran out of cars. He is baffled that, despite his reservation, the company doesn’t have a car for him. He tells the employee, “You know how to take the reservation, you just don’t know how to hold the reservation. And that’s really the most important part of the reservation – the holding.”
We can sometimes fall into similar thinking about our faith. We’ve seen the Lord work in our lives, and we know His salvation – but will it stick? What if we wake up one day to find that the hope we’ve been grasping is an illusion, and we have nothing to keep holding on to? We find this encouragement in Hebrews 10:
“Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful.” (Hebrews 10:23, NIV)
In this verse, the writer of Hebrews exhorts us to hold unswervingly to our hope in Christ. Holding unswervingly means not turning away and chasing false sources of hope. Throughout the twists and turns of life’s road, the only trustworthy foundation of hope we have is Christ and our salvation in Him.
This hope isn’t wishful thinking, the way we often use the word “hope” in English. For a Christian, hope is confidence in the rock-solid promises of God. We can hold unswervingly to this hope because—and only because—the One who makes these promises is faithful to keep them.
Our assurance doesn’t come from the strength of our faith, but from the object of our faith – the finished work of our Lord Jesus Christ. God can be trusted to always complete what He started (Philippians 1:6). His faithfulness is the reason we can grab on tight to hope and never let go.
Counterfeit sources of hope in this world will come and go. One day you may wake up to find that the earthly hope you were grasping is gone. So instead of trying to grasp the shifting sand of this world, hold fast to the faithful One who keeps all His promises to you . . . the One who will hold you until the end.
No matter what you face this week, hold on to the hope you’ve been given by your faithful Father.
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