“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead…” (1 Peter 1:3).
The new birth (being born again) comes with a living hope, infusing the mind and body of the believer.
The world at large lives “energized” by dead hopes: health, money, power, prestige, etc. All these are dead hopes because they are un-stable: here one day, gone the next. A dead hope doesn’t have any solid/truthful support/basis.
Everything that surrounds us is un-stable…there is only one stable: God.
A living hope has a solid foundation, it is based on “stable” things.
The main stable “thing” that makes its foundation solid is God’s grace (v.3).
The living hope is not the result of one’s decision, kind of, “I decided today to have hope…” Rather, the living hope comes bundled in the new life…a life into which we have been born. Peter writes that “God caused us to be born into a living hope…” (v.3).
The living hope that we have been born into, rests on the great act of Jesus’ resurrection (v.3). Actually, the new life that we enjoy was possible because Jesus Christ was resurrected from the dead.
That living hope has as its foundation God’s power (1Peter 1:5). That means that “while we hope” we are guarded through faith so that our hope may be fulfilled when everything will be revealed.
A living hope is an active hope…a life-changing hope, in the sense that it “drives” the current life, making it a different kind of life. A life characterized by thankfulness for a forgiven/forgotten/dealt-with past – we live knowing that we have been redeemed. “For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect” (vv.18, 19).
Indeed, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!”