Our hope is in God. Read Psalm 130. It’s 21 days until Christmas, and we are in the first week of Advent. Advent is the season of preparation. We are preparing our travel plans, our menus, and gift list for Christmas. Oh yeah, we are also preparing our hearts to receive the Christ Child born in Bethlehem. This first week of Advent, we focus on hope. Hope is the confident expectation that what God has promised will come true. Hope is not wishful thinking. Wishful thinking is wanting something good to happen without having any evidence or assurance that it actually can happen. I wish someone would give me a million dollars. I can wish all I want, but this wish is very impractical and improbable. I hope that I can live eternally. This hope seems just as outrageous as someone giving me a million dollars, except for one thing. God promises eternal life to those who put their faith in Jesus as Lord and Savior. What makes this credible? What brings it from the realm of fantasy to reality? Eternal life is not wishful thinking because God has already demonstrated that God can achieve what God has promised. The Apostle Peter witnessed the arrest and crucifixion of Jesus. Peter also witnessed the empty grave and the resurrected Christ. Peter wrote to the Galatians, “Through (Jesus) you believe in God, who raised him from the dead and glorified him, and so your faith and hope are in God.” (1 Peter 1:21) The birth of Jesus as the Messiah had been hope for throughout the centuries. God kept the promise of giving us the Messiah and now gives us the promise of eternal life through Jesus. Soak it all in. Putting our hope in God is not wishful thinking. Hope is based on a real God who is able to deliver every promise that God has made.

Dear God, prepare our hearts to receive Jesus the Messiah born in Bethlehem. We put our hope in your word and your promises because our hope is in you. Amen.