Hope means taking God at His Word. It is the anticipation of a favorable outcome under God’s guidance. More specifically, hope is the confidence that what God has done for us in the past guarantees our participation in what God will do in the future. That contrasts to the world’s definition of hope as “a feeling that what is wanted will happen.”

You go to a doctor whose name you cannot pronounce and whose degrees you have never verified. He gives you a prescription you cannot read, and you take it to a pharmacist you have never met. He gives you a chemical compound you do not understand. Then you go home and take the pill according to the instructions on the bottle. Now that takes a lot of faith!

Hebrews 11:1 

1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

Hope in that which is unconfirmed, or the substance of things hoped for. It's taking hold of nothing and holding on until it becomes something.

Romans 8:24 b  

24 For what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for?”

It has not happened yet, but because God has promised, it will happen! You can have confident assurance and blessed hope in what God says He will do.

We know that heaven exists even though we have not seen it. This hope defies logic to the unsaved mind, it is preposterous to believe in what you cannot prove by experience. But it is unwavering confidence in the unseen, evidence or conviction. Total unquestioning confidence that what God says is true, past, present, and future.

The unseen things will never perish.

II Corinthians 4:18 

18 While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.

This is experienced in our new life as believers.

II Corinthians 5:17  

17 Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.

This is illustrated in our relationship with the unseen but very real Christ.

I Peter 1:8  

18 Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory.

Every aspect of our Christian life must start with faith. It is how we start our spiritual life, at salvation.

Ephesians 2:8 

8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God.

It is how we please God. Without faith it is impossible to please God. It is inseparable from works.

Faith without works is dead! A body without the brain is dead! Faith without works is dead. Dead faith does nothing.

We operate on a different plane, an elevated way of living our life. God gives us the blessed hope in the promise of our Lord's return.

A tourist was visiting an exquisite garden on a lovely estate in Italy. He spoke to the caretaker and asked him how long he had been there. The caretaker said for twenty-five years. He asked how often the owner had been to see the estate and the caretaker said, four times. He said that the last time the owner was there had been twelve years ago. The caretaker explained that he had been left pretty much alone. 

The visitor said, “You keep the garden so spic-and-span that one would think you were expecting the owner tomorrow." The caretaker said, “No, I’m expecting him today!”

Titus 2:13 

13 Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ.