40 Days of Hope E-Book

Paul David Tripp

• Herausgeber: Crossway
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Serie: 40 Days Devotionals
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

A 40-Day Devotional on Hope from Paul David Tripp This series of short devotionals from popular author and speaker Paul David Tripp encourages Christians to experience the life-giving message of the gospel every day. Each book contains 40 daily readings curated from the best-selling devotional New Morning Mercies and focused on a particular theme essential to the Christian life. Short enough to read in 5 minutes or less, each meditation will encourage readers to treasure the life-changing truths of God's word more fully. Everyone places their hope in something. Through 40 daily meditations from his best-selling devotional New Morning Mercies, popular author and speaker Paul David Tripp explores the role of hope in a Christian's everyday life. Tripp reminds readers that hope is not a feeling, an object, or a place, but a person—Jesus Christ.

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40

Days

of

Hope

Books by Paul David Tripp

40 Days of Faith

40 Days of Grace

40 Days of Hope

40 Days of Love

A Quest for More: Living for Something Bigger Than You

Age of Opportunity: A Biblical Guide for Parenting Teens (Resources for Changing Lives)

Awe: Why It Matters for Everything We Think, Say, and Do

Broken-Down House: Living Productively in a World Gone Bad

Come, Let Us Adore Him: A Daily Advent Devotional

Dangerous Calling: Confronting the Unique Challenges of Pastoral Ministry

Forever: Why You Can’t Live without It

Grief: Finding Hope Again

How People Change (with Timothy S. Lane)

Instruments in the Redeemer’s Hands: People in Need of Change Helping People in Need of Change (Resources for Changing Lives)

Journey to the Cross: A 40-Day Lenten Devotional

Lead: 12 Gospel Principles for Leadership in the Church

Lost in the Middle: Midlife and the Grace of God

My Heart Cries Out: Gospel Meditations for Everyday Life

New Morning Mercies: A Daily Gospel Devotional

Parenting: 14 Gospel Principles That Can Radically Change Your Family

Redeeming Money: How God Reveals and Reorients Our Hearts

Sex in a Broken World: How Christ Redeems What Sin Distorts

Shelter in the Time of Storm: Meditations on God and Trouble

Suffering: Eternity Makes a Difference (Resources for Changing Lives)

Suffering: Gospel Hope When Life Doesn’t Make Sense

Teens and Sex: How Should We Teach Them? (Resources for Changing Lives)

War of Words: Getting to the Heart of Your Communication Struggles (Resources for Changing Lives)

What Did You Expect?: Redeeming the Realities of Marriage

Whiter Than Snow: Meditations on Sin and Mercy

40

Days

of

Hope

Paul David Tripp

40 Days of Hope

Copyright © 2021 by Paul David Tripp

Published by Crossway 1300 Crescent Street Wheaton, Illinois 60187

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, except as provided for by USA copyright law. Crossway® is a registered trademark in the United States of America.

The devotions in this book appeared previously in Paul David Tripp, New Morning Mercies: A Daily Gospel Devotional (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2014).

Cover design: Josh Dennis

First printing, 2021

Printed in the United States of America

All Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

All emphases in Scripture quotations have been added by the author.

Trade paperback ISBN: 978-1-4335-7433-7 ePub ISBN: 978-1-4335-7436-8 PDF ISBN: 978-1-4335-7434-4 Mobipocket ISBN: 978-1-4335-7435-1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Tripp, Paul David, 1950- author. 

Title: 40 days of hope / Paul David Tripp. 

Other titles: Forty days of hope

Description: Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway, 2021. | “The devotions in this book appeared previously in Paul David Tripp, New Morning Mercies: A Daily Gospel Devotional (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2014).”

Identifiers: LCCN 2020038476 (print) | LCCN 2020038477 (ebook) | ISBN 9781433574337 (trade paperback) | ISBN 9781433574344 (pdf) | ISBN 9781433574351 (mobipcket) | ISBN 9781433574368 (epub)

Subjects: LCSH: Hope—Religious aspects—Christianity—Meditations. 

Classification: LCC BV4638 .T75 2021 (print) | LCC BV4638 (ebook) | DDC 242/.2—dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020038476

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020038477

Crossway is a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

2021-03-04 03:58:13 PM

Introduction

Probably few days go by without you using the word hope.

“I hope we’re on time.”

“I hope it doesn’t rain.”

“I hope it’s not cancer.”

“I hope she’ll understand.”

“I hope he’ll be OK.”

“I hope he isn’t angry.”

“I hope God hears this.”

“I hope he loves me.”

From the smallest of things to the grandest of concerns, our lives are shaped, directed, motivated, and frustrated by hope. Everyone hopes. Everyone hooks their hope to something or someone. Everyone hopes their hope will come through for them. No one ever purposely hopes in what is hopeless. Everyone longs for hope that is sure. Everyone gets up in the morning motivated by hope of some kind or paralyzed by hopelessness of some kind. For all of us, hoping is so natural and frequent that we lose sight of how significant it is in shaping what we do, how we do it, and how we feel in the process. Yet even though it’s natural and we do it all the time, hope is painfully elusive for many of us.

It’s important to understand what hope is. Hope always has three elements:

DesireObjectExpectation

Hope is always fueled by some form of desire. It may be the desire to be loved, to be cared for, to be protected, to be understood, to be provided for, to be accepted, to experience comfort or pleasure, to have control, to be forgiven—the list could go on and on. Also, hope always has an object. I look to someone or something to satisfy my desire. Lastly, hope carries an expectation of when, how, and where the person or thing in which I have placed my hope will deliver what I have hoped for. Almost every day, you entrust your smallest and largest longings into the hands of something or someone with the hope that your longing will be satisfied. To be human is to hope.

The language and drama of hope is splashed all over the pages of Scripture. The Bible is a narrative of hope shattered and hope restored, and in telling its hope story, the Bible speaks to each of the three elements of hope. Scripture has much to say about our longings, that is, the desires that animate us and shape our lives. It tells us what to love and what to hate, what to desire and what to forsake, and what is good for us and what will harm us. Much of the drama of hope in our lives is not that we don’t get what we hope for, but that we spend so much of our time hoping for the wrong things.

The Bible has much to say about the object of our hope. It reminds us that when it comes to hope, there are only two places to look. You can look to created things to satisfy the longings of your heart or you can look to the Creator. It really is true that when it comes to fundamental human hope, each of us looks horizontally or vertically. The Bible warns us that if our hope disappoints us, it’s because our hope rests on the wrong object. There is only one place to look for hope that is secure, no matter what. Consider these verses:

You are my hiding place and my shield; I hope in your word. (Ps. 119:114)

O Israel, hope in the Lord! For with the Lord there is steadfast love, and with him is plentiful redemption. (Ps. 130:7)

The Lord takes pleasure in those who fear him, in those who hope in his steadfast love. (Ps. 147:11)

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. (Jer. 29:11)

“The Lord is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in him” (Lam. 3:24)

Hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. (Rom. 5:5)

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope. (Rom. 15:13)

Having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints. (Eph. 1:18)

To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. (Col. 1:27)

In hope of eternal life, which God, who never lies, promised before the ages began. (Titus 1:2)

Notice what each of these verses does. Each confronts us with the radical, life-reshaping truth that ultimately, true, lasting, and secure hope is a person—the Lord Almighty. Hope—the kind that transforms your life, gives rest to your heart, and ignites new ways of living—is attached to him. Scripture repeatedly invites us, commands us, and implores us to hope in the Lord, and it gives us reason after reason to do so.

Finally, Scripture speaks to our expectations. It promises us that when we hope in the Lord, we will not be disappointed. No, God won’t submit to our time expectations, and he won’t always deliver what we hope for in the way we expect, but God is powerful, caring, and faithful. He will give us everything he has promised us, and he will generously provide what is best for us. So we wait with patient expectation, knowing that our hope is firm when we hope in the Lord.

It’s wonderful to have hope that doesn’t rise or fall with changing circumstances. It’s a sweet thing to have hope that doesn’t die when trouble comes. It’s good to be free from placing our hope in things that have no power whatsoever to deliver what we long for. And it’s wise to spend time examining what we hope for, reorienting our hope and meditating on the one who alone is a worthy object of our hope.

May this devotional renew your hope, and in renewing your hope, renew your courage, perseverance, and joy.

Day 1

Hope is not a thing, not a location, not a situation, not an experience. Hope is a person, and his name is Jesus.

If you pay attention and listen carefully to what you and the people around you are saying, you will realize that we are hope obsessed. Day after day, the things we do are fueled by hope. Little third-grader Sally says to her mom as she gets ready for school, “I sure hope the girls at school like me.” Mom thinks to herself that day, “I hope our marriage gets better.” Teenager Tim says to his buddy, “I got a new job after school; I hope it’s decent.” Dad worries in the hope that he won’t be one of the guys who’s caught in the downsizing that his corporation is doing. From hoping that a certain meal will be good to hoping that we will have the moral strength to do the things we should do, our lives are fueled and directed by hope.

What we’re all searching for is hope that won’t disappoint us, that won’t leave us hopeless in the end. And we all want to convince ourselves that what we have placed our hope in will deliver. What are you asking of something when you place your hope in it? You’re asking it to give you peace of heart. You’re asking it to give your life meaning. You’re asking it to give you purpose and direction. You’re asking it to give you a reason to continue. You’re asking it to help you get through difficulty and disappointment. You’re asking it to free you from envy or anxiety. You’re asking it to give you joy in the morning and rest at night. Now, that’s a lot to ask of anything. That fact confronts you with this reality—if your hope disappoints you, it’s because it’s the wrong hope.

Romans 5:1–5 talks about a hope that won’t disappoint you even in times of suffering. Maybe you’re thinking, “Where can I find that hope?” Sturdy hope that does not vanish with the constant changes in situations, locations, and relationships that make up all of our lives—hope that simply will never, ever disappoint us—can be found in only one place. It is not to be found in a certain thing. It is, in fact, a person, Jesus. Whether you have realized it or not, he is what your hoping heart has been searching for, because what you’ve really been searching for is life, real heart-changing, heart-satisfying life—life to the fullest, life abundant. People can love and respect you, but they can’t give you life. Situations can make your life easier, but they can’t give you life. Locations can bring some changes to your life, but they can’t give you life. Achievements can be temporarily satisfying, but they can’t give you life. True lasting hope is never found horizontally. It’s only ever found vertically, at the feet of the Messiah, the one who is hope. Place your hopeful heart in his hands today.

For further study and encouragement

Colossians 1:15–29

Day 2