About Christ's call to live in hope:

1 Peter 1:3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade--kept in heaven for you, 5 who through faith are shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. (NIV)

God did not bring you into the world so you would look down in hopelessness and dejection. God brought you into the world to live with His power of hope and promise for eternity. No time in our life seems to look the darkest than the time just before our death. However, we are often deceived by appearances because the time just before our death, if we have accepted Christ into our heart and life, is a time full of eternal hope and eternal promise. The times when it seems there is no hope for anything good to happen to us or for us, will, in the eternal span of time, be made to exist as if time did not exist. In Christ and because of Him, the times when you have no hope and promise are really times when there is for you hope eternal. In the times when you have no joy there is already joy waiting to be poured out upon you. Christ came to give you hope for every second you are alive. Christ walked away from death in the grave to give you hope. Christ lives today and calls you to live in hope. Christ walks and talks with you every second you are alive so you will look beyond the way things are to a time when all things will be made new and every hope will be realized�all in an eternal stream of His love and grace.