Cancer Introduces A Person To Hope.(Positive Side to Cancer)

    We are introduced to hope when we have cancer because from that point on we hope that we will get better or we hope we can have the grace to go through it victoriously.
A Definition of Hope
What is hope? Is it a wishy washy maybe or a kind of unsure optimism? The modern idea of hope is “to wish for, to expect, but without certainty of the fulfillment; to desire very much, but with no real assurance of getting your desire.”
“Hope” in Scripture means“a strong and confident expectation.”

In summary, hope is the confident expectation, the sure certainty that what God has promised in the Word is true, has occurred, and or will in accordance with God’s sure Word.

A Description of Hope. If we were to describe HOPE we could say that…..
It is Dynamic or Active.

June Hunt has an interesting note on the use the anchor to symbolize hope...

For centuries, anchors have been a symbol of hope. This emblem was especially significant to the early persecuted church. Many etchings of anchors were discovered in the catacombs of Rome, where Christians held their meetings in hiding. Threatened with death because of their faith, these committed Christians used the anchor as a disguised cross and as a marker to guide the way to their secret meetings. Located beneath the ancient city, 600 miles of these tomb-like burial chambers served as a place of refuge during perilous times of persecution. Thus, the anchor—found even on some tombstones today—has become the symbol of guaranteed hope for the eternal security of true Christians. (Biblical Counseling Keys on Hope: The Anchor of Your Soul)

It has been said that man can live about forty days without food, about three days without water, and about eight minutes without air—but only one second without hope! (Anon)

The Italian poet, Dante, in Divine Comedy, penned this inscription over the world of the dead...

“Abandon all hope,
you who enter here!”

One might paraphrase Dante's dismal declaration...
Life without Christ is a hopeless end
but life in Christ is an endless hope


If our hope is biblical and based on God's promises, it will put us in gear.

It has Results
(1) It changes how we see ourselves. It changes us into pilgrim persons, people who see this life as temporary sojourn.
(2) It changes what we value. Hope, if biblical, makes us heavenly minded rather than earthly minded.
(3) It affects what we do with our lives—our talents, time, treasures.

   The Christian life, if it is grasped according to God's truth, is a magnificent obsession with an eternal hope, a hope that does not lead to an escapist attitude, but to the pursuit of life on a whole new dimension. It makes you bullish, as we might say today, on the potentials of this life as stewards of God. It gives us power to live courageously, to be all God has called us to be in Christ.