Here's Hoping

Stuart McAlpine

Description

It has been said that hope is the pillar that holds up the world. God described Himself as the One who gives a future and a hope. This book is about how His hope will hold you up.
'Here's Hoping'. The title is tongue-in-cheek. By saying “here's hoping” we usually fake hope because in reality we are not that hopeful. It is spoken without much confidence or hope at all and betrays uncertainty. We say it as we cast our wants and wishes, without much conviction, into the winds of fortune and the whims of the future, but without any sense of a guarantee for the desired result. “Here's hoping” speaks of longing that is not firing on all cylinders, of a dream or desire that is likely to stay that way, unrealized and unrequited. When we say it, we do not think “cross my heart and hope to die”. That kind of vigorous assurance and commitment is not usually prompting the phrase. It is less about crossing the heart and more about crossing the fingers. It is less about surety and more about good luck. To say “here's hoping” is to prepare oneself for potential disappointment. Ironically, it is more an expression of hopelessness than hope. This book gives the reasons we can say "Here's hoping" with assured anticipation and confidence

Sujets

• Hope
• Religion
• Philosophie et théologie
• Personal Growth
• Christian Living

Informations

• Publié par: WestBow Press
• Date de parution: 13 mars 2023
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781664289994
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

HERE’S HOPING
recovering hope for heaven and earth
STUART MCALPINE
 

Copyright © 2023 Stuart McAlpine.
 
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
 
 
WestBow Press
A Division of Thomas Nelson & Zondervan
1663 Liberty Drive
Bloomington, IN 47403
www.westbowpress.com
844-714-3454
 
Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.
 
Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.
 
All Scripture quotations are taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
 
ISBN: 978-1-6642-8997-0 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-6642-8998-7 (hc)
ISBN: 978-1-6642-8999-4 (e)
 
Library of Congress Control Number: 2023901060
 
 
 
WestBow Press rev. date: 03/13/2022

 
The Problem of Pain by C.S. Lewis copyright © C.S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. 1940
 
Letters to an American Lady by C.S. Lewis copyright © C.S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. 1967
 
The World’s last Night by C.S. Lewis copyright © C.S Lewis Pte. Ltd. 1960
 
God in the Dock: Christian Apologetics by C.S. Lewis copyright © C.S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. 1970
 
God in the Dock: First and Second Things by C.S. Lewis copyright © C.S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. 1970
 
Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis copyright © C.S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. 1942, 1943, 1944, 1952
 
Miracles by C.S. Lewis copyright © C.S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. 1947, 1960
 
Reflections on the Psalms by C.S. Lewis copyright © C.S. Lewis Pte. Ltd.1958
 
The Weight of Glory by C.S. Lewis copyright © C.S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. 1949
 
The Last Battle by C.S. Lewis copyright © C.S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. 1985
 
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis copyright © C.S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. 1950
 
The Magician’s Nephew by C.S. Lewis copyright © C.S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. 1955
Contents
Preface
 
Chapter 1 So What’s the Hope?
Chapter 2 Hope and the Public Square
Chapter 3 And the least of these is …
Chapter 4 Mind that Hope
Chapter 5 The Triune Hope: God of Hope
Chapter 6 The Triune Hope: Christ Our Hope
Chapter 7 The Triune Hope: The Spirit of Hope
Chapter 8 The Anatomy of Hopelessness
Chapter 9 The Gospel of Hope
Chapter 10 Resurrection Hope
Chapter 11 Hope and Resurrection
Chapter 12 Hope and Ascension
Chapter 13 Hope After Sin
Chapter 14 Hope After Betrayal
Chapter 15 When Hope is Stumped
Chapter 16 His Word is My Hope
Chapter 17 My Hope is in Your Word
Chapter 18 Hope and Waiting
Chapter 19 Hope and Patience
Chapter 20 Hope and Discipleship
Chapter 21 Hope and Continuing Discipleship
Chapter 22 Hope and Community
Chapter 23 Hope and the Sacraments
Chapter 24 Hope and Healing
Chapter 25 Christian Hope for Israel
Chapter 26 Our Father in the Hope
Chapter 27 The Anchor of Hope
Chapter 28 The Blessed Hope
Chapter 29 The Blessed Hope: For My Going
Chapter 30 The Blessed Hope: For His Coming
Chapter 31 Hope for Heaven and Earth
 
Appendix 1
Endnotes
To my darling wife, Celia, with whom I share my life and living hope.
To all my children and grandchildren, in the hope that their hope will be nothing less than the hope of glory.

“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord … to give you a future and a hope.”
(Jeremiah 29:11)
“Hope does not put us to shame.”
(Romans 5:5)
“From first to last, and not merely in the epilogue, Christianity is eschatology, is hope, forward looking and forward moving, and therefore also revolutionizing and transforming the present.”
( Jürgen Moltmann)
“Hope is passion for what is possible.”
( Soren Kierkegaard)
Dum spiro spero - While I breathe, I hope.
( Theocritus)
“Everything that is done in the world is done by hope.”
( Martin Luther)
“Hope is the pillar that holds up the world.”
( Pliny the Elder)
“Hope means hoping when things are hopeless, or it is no virtue at all.”
( G.K.Chesterton)
“If it is rational to hope, is it rational to hope without God?”
( Alan Mittelman)
“So instead of looking for hope, try this: don’t hope.”
(Mark Manson)
“Hope is an essential part of the human condition … the mind and soul cannot endure without hope.”
( Elie Wiesel)
Preface
As I began to write this manuscript, coronavirus was going global, and the stock market had crashed into the ground. Future hopes deposited in healthy bodies and investment accounts were taking a beating. Fitness and nutrition, acquisition and ambition were turning out to be bad synonyms for hope. The idolatries of cultural success had fallen, as the venues of sports and entertainment were empty and silent. Meanwhile, as is customary in hopeless times, current Presidential campaigners, here in the United States, had adopted futurist slogans in the tradition of earlier campaigns. Do you remember any of them? Keep hope alive (Jackson 1988); Leadership for the New Millennium (Gore 2000); A safer world and a more hopeful America (Bush 2004); Hope (Obama 2008); Forward (Obama 2012); Restore our Future (Romney 2012). Following what has been aptly described as “the hope and change messianism of Obama” 1 , Donald Trump re-branded President Reagan’s successful rallying cry of 1980: “Make America Great Again!” Joe Biden was telling us that “Our best days still lie ahead” and Bernie Sanders was committed to give us “A future to believe in”. Regardless of their differences, they share a naïve hope-ology. If hope is still just around the corner, then why does that corner feel like a very long, slow turn, that just keeps bending until it appears to be a circular treadmill of hopelessness?
The Hope T-Shirt has been turned inside out and is now reading Anxiety. We have been coined ‘the age of anxiety’. If you think about it, anxiety is the antithesis of hope, since its posture in the face of the future is fear. Social commentators like Ross Douthat have commented on the public’s wavering trust in once respected public institutions as well as its dwindling expectations for personal and private life. There is not so much a demise of hope as a death. There are no present equivalents to the “hopes of utopia percolating in Paris, Woodstock, and San Francisco.” 2
Or are there? The fact is that the growth of Christian hope is blooming and burgeoning in the massive revival movements of Africa, China and South America. The near-the-floor reading on the West’s hope-meter is in stark contrast to the rocketing hope-scales in the global East and South. Yes, maybe the apostle Paul’s dictum can be heard in the western wind: “without hope and without God.” However, what Paul immediately went on to say to the Ephesians is a front-page declaration that needs to be re-read and re-heard: “BUT NOW!” Now what? The hopelessness of separation from God, of being without God and without hope, has been exchanged for the hope of nearness: “But now in Christ Jesus you who were once far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ.” 3
This book is a plate of appetizers, a wide variety of small bites and tastes of this enormous subject of Christian Hope, to show you how it can be served in so many different ways, but also to demonstrate that it is an ingredient that the recipe book, the scriptures no less, suggest is present in everything that we spiritually ingest for our present and eternal nourishment.
I am trusting that you will find this modest treatise:
• Pertinent : relevant and applicable to both present culture and your present life
• Persuasive: a presentation and argumentation from biblical material that seeks to convince you about the future according to God
• Personal: we may find ourselves in very different places on the hope-index for many reasons that will be part of the discussion: whether the reason is theological or psychological, temperamental or intellectual, or whether it has been eroded by disappointment and loss of many kinds.
This matter of hope is so foundational to our understanding of the gospel of Jesus Christ, to our daily discipleship, to our capacities to live for Christ. You can read book after book about discipleship but so many of them never deal with the subject of hope, and often, never even mention it. That is an utterly incomplete presentation of the Christian message and ultimately unhelpful, because unhopeful.
In the Old Testament Histories, huge waves of national and international history sweep across the pages of Judges and the Samuels, the Kings and the Chronicles. However, amidst the generalized and globalized hopelessness, tucked in between their leaves is the book of Ruth that tells us that her poignant and painful hopelessness was not lost on heaven’s radar. Hope is earthed in the family of an unknown widow. In the New Testament, tucked amidst all the great epistles with all their doctrinal import and addressing beleaguered believers in the major cities of the world, is