The overarching theme of Peter’s first epistle is “hope.” The Bible does not use the word hope the way we usually use it. This hope we have through faith in Christ is not the worldly hope of wishful thinking. This hope is not the gamble of the godless that somehow things will turn out alright. This hope is not a fuzzy optimism of our own. This hope is a sure and certain confidence in Christ and in Christ’s word. This hope is the assurance that God can be counted on to come to us and to save us. This hope is the certainty of the glory to come. Paul spoke of it often: “When Christ, who is your life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory.”
We hope for a lot of things in this life – for the way we would like things to be. Our hopes have been often dashed and drowned. But this hope, this assurance, this confidence in what is coming , abides, undimmed by difficulties. That is because God’s unshakeable love for you and me has been guaranteed by the doing and dying and rising of His only- begotten Son, Jesus Christ. He alone is our true Hope!