Let Us: Hold Unswervingly

Let Us Hold Unswervingly

Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful.

As we dive into the second “let us” encouragement we can observe that this message is short but sweet but impactful nonetheless. The command here is to “hold unswervingly” as the NIV puts it. Other translations have “hold tightly without wavering” (NLT) or “hold fast…without wavering” (ESV). The original Greek manuscripts have the word katechō meaning “to hold” “to take” or “possess”. We also see the word, aklinēs used which means “frim” or “unmoved”. We are to hold on to something firmly without moving positions or opinions on that thing. What exactly is it we are supposed to hold on to? Paul says we are to stay grounded to the hope we profess. What is this hope? We profess that Jesus is Lord and that he has resurrected, is King of the entire world right now, and will one day come back to restore creation to its original perfect state. That is our hope, that is what we are supposed to be holding on to, looking forward to, and urging on everyday. 

Our hope is that one day Jesus will return and we will be resurrected alongside him and inhabit a new creation. We need to stay grounded and never turn away to some other false hope. When we turn away and put our hope in something else, what we are really saying is we don’t want God’s restored creation, we want no part of it or maybe we simply don’t believe in it enough for it to be our hope. But have no fear, God promised this would happen and so it will happen because he is faithful. So there is no need to have a different hope than in the resurrection, God is faithful and will do what He says and we must believe him. 

Now to answer the question of how, how do we hold tightly to this hope? Romans 15:4 is a great place to start, “For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.” Persevering and enduring hard times is what we do to hold on to our faith. But how we do that is through the encouragement of the Scriptures, the Bible. Both Old and New testament have been written for our instruction as Pual says and they were written so as to encourage all believers into remembering and keeping our hope in the forefront of our minds. Without the Scriptures, we are not reminded of God’s love, his wisdom or the hope of the resurrection. We need to read the Scriptures, say the Scriptures, meditate on the Scriptures, and share the Scriptures to encourage everyone to hold on to our hope in Jesus. 

The other way is to encourage one another by getting together, fellowshipping with one another and this we will discuss more in depth in the last article. But when we come together as believers and provide encouragement to one another it helps us through the tough times because we have a family to lean on and glean strength from. We are to also pray to God who we can so boldly go before and ask for strength and wisdom. Let us not sway between God’s promises and the riches or hopes this life offers. We will be sadly disappointed in the end. Let us hold on to the hope that Jesus is returning, we will participate in the resurrection, and we will be glorified in the new creation. This is what every hard time leads us to and we must remain faithful just as He is faithful towards us.