WE ARE SAVED BY HOPE.

 

 APRIL 30.

 
We are saved by hope
Romans 8:24

 
GRACE saves us, as it provides a Saviour;
  faith saves us, as it receives that Saviour;
  and hope saves us, as it preserves us from
    despondency and desperation.
 
Hope is holy expectations.
  It springs from grace.
  It is produced by the Holy Spirit.
  It rests on God's veracity.
  It fixes on distant and invisible blessings.
 
We hope in God, for he is gracious.
We hope in God's word, for it is true.
 
We hope for the greatest blessings,
  for they are promised.
We hope when all around us is gloomy;
  and all within us is discouraging;
  and we do so because God remains faithful –
      he cannot deny himself.
 
Whoever possesses a good hope through grace
  will find it bearing him up above the billows,
  and urging him forward through
   all difficulties and oppositions.
 
Who of us, and looking back,
  has not reason to say,
    “I had fainted unless I had believed to see
    the goodness of God in the land of the living?”
 
We were saved by hope, and the hope
  which saved us is in times past
    will save us in the future.
 
Let us therefore encourage hope,
  reprove slavish fear, and say,
    “I will hope continually, and
    yet praise thee more and more.”
 

Billows of disappointment roll,

Along the restless tides of time;

But gospel hope bears up the soul,

Till an eternal calm shall shine.

 
James Smith 1849