three good reasons to have hope

1. God is crazy in love with us
Romans 8:32-39 (The Message)
If God didn't hesitate to put everything on the line for us, embracing our condition and exposing himself to the worst by sending his own Son, is there anything else he wouldn't gladly and freely do for us? And who would dare tangle with God by messing with one of God's chosen? Who would dare even to point a finger? The One who died for us—who was raised to life for us!—is in the presence of God at this very moment sticking up for us. Do you think anyone is going to be able to drive a wedge between us and Christ's love for us? There is no way! Not trouble, not hard times, not hatred, not hunger, not homelessness, not bullying threats, not backstabbing, not even the worst sins listed in Scripture… None of this fazes us because Jesus loves us. I'm absolutely convinced that nothing—nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable—absolutely nothing can get between us and God's love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us.

2. There's heaven on earth (God is with us).
Heaven on earth happens when we actually accept and get in line with God's will for our lives. It's those places and events when God and God's people can hear each other! Of course, that's not all there is!

1 Corinthians 15:19 (The Message)
If all we get out of Christ is a little inspiration for a few short years, we're a pretty sorry lot. But the truth is that Christ has been raised up, the first in a long legacy of those who are going to leave the cemeteries.

3. And there's heaven!
Planet Earth isn't heaven. I used to have a friend who always asked me to read about heaven from the book of Revelation whenever I visited him. He wished that things could be perfect, already. We would read, then I would remind him that God had work for him to do here on Earth. But the truth of the matter is that we are hard-wired to look toward eternity. It just isn't in healthy people to say, "Well, I guess this is all there is."