HOPE WITHOUT SCRIPTURE?

My hope used to be in myself. I told myself that “whatever life threw at me, I’d be able to endure and that nothing could stop me,” and I believed it. However, life began to show me that there were things that I couldn’t endure. This, of course, sent me in a tailspin, a downward spiral.

We all need hope, even to get out of bed in the morning, but where does it come from? The Apostle Paul claimed that it comes from what has been written:

·       For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope. (Romans 15:4)

Some claim that we should trust in God without resorting to Scripture - its teaching and promises. However, this isn’t possible. How can we hope in a doctrine-less, amorphous god? Instead, we need to know that when we confess our sins, He will forgive and cleanse us (1 John 1:9), that He will return for us, and that we’ll rise from the dead to receive an everlasting kingdom of joy.

Without these Scriptural assurances, a belief in God is an empty room that can only be filled with the objects of our imagination. However, it is evident that some prefer such an undemanding “god.”

Paul also claimed that “WHATEVER was written” is for our benefit so that “we might have hope.” We cannot pick-and-choose from among the verses. They are all the Word of God, as Jesus also affirmed when He was being tempted by the Devil in the wilderness:

·       “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” (Matthew 4:4)

Life was a matter of submitting to each word as God’s Word. This was how we were to love Him:

·       Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words. And the word that you hear is not mine but the Father’s who sent me. (John 14:23-24)

How else can Scripture provide the basis for our hope unless we regard it ALL as God’s Words? If we don’t respect Scripture enough to receive it as God’s message to us in its entirety, we will also not respect those verses we have chosen to suit our lifestyle. We cannot play fast-and-loose with Scripture. When we do this, we play fast-and-loose with God.