An Endless Hope

We have this hope as an anchor of the soul, firm and secure.

Hebrews 6:19 NIV

An unbeliever only sees a hopeless end to life. But the Christian sees an endless hope. In a network television program, Malcolm Muggeridge reflected that a true Christian “is longing for the termination of life in time as one longs for the end of a long and arduous three-week sea voyage when one is in the last three days. I look forward to the time when my life will partake of eternity with near irrepressible eagerness.”

Perhaps these words of Malcolm Muggeridge do not describe your feelings about death. Perhaps you are afraid of death and don’t relate to the quiet confidence this famous British journalist and TV personality feels. The torturing, tormenting fear of death is a condition that is perfectly normal for any who have never come to Christ. Death is an experience from which people instinctively shrink. Yet for the Christian the fear is removed. He has the assurance that the sins for which he would be judged at death have been dealt with, whereas the non-Christian has no such assurance. I do not look forward to the prospect of dying—but I do look forward to death itself. It will be a glorious release. It will be the fulfillment of everything I have ever longed for. The Scripture says, “In thy presence is fullness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore” (Psalm 16:11).

Our Father and our God, thank You for Jesus, who anchors my soul in the troubling seas of this life. He is my Savior, my eternal life preserver, my rescuer. He is my joy, my peace, and my ever-present comfort in times of trial. I wait impatiently for His coming again to take me home. And in His name I pray. Amen.

Billy Graham, Unto the Hills: A Daily Devotional (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2010).