Hope

"But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope you have. But do this with gentleness and respect." (I Peter 3:15)

Our hope comes in Jesus Christ. It starts with Him and it ends with Him. The reality is that nothing else in the world really matters. We go through our days and do the best we can. If you are anything like me sometimes you have really good days and then there are the times when you have some tough ones.

On the good days it is easy to give a reason for the hope you have. We recognize hope in a lot of ways when things are going well. The hard part is letting people know about our hope on the tough days. The days where everyone seems to get under your skin a little, or the days in which you continually make mistakes.

Then those last few words in the verse really get to me. Do this with gentleness and respect. These two characteristics are what can separate us from other people. Live in your hope, and share that hope with others. But always show other people gentleness and respect.

In a world where we can take to social media every time we disagree with something this can be a difficult standard. Yet it is a necessary one. How are people supposed to recognize and crave your hope if you don't demonstrate these attributes to others? But through gentleness and respect people will actually hear the hope we have in Jesus and want to make it part of their own lives. - Bob Koehne