Moroni 7:41-42 "And what is it that ye shall hope for? Behold I say unto you that ye shall have hope through the atonement of Christ and the power of his resurrection, to be raised unto life eternal, and this because of your faith in him according to the promise.
Wherefore, if a man have faith he must needs have hope; for without faith there cannot be any hope."
I love these two scriptures. Hope is such a big part of our outlook on life. One person comes to mind when I think of hope, Joseph Smith. When he was a young boy he hoped that there was a better way, he hoped that there was only one way to interpret the Bible. That hope and faith that he had led him to pray to Heavenly Father and receive his answer to his questions and more then he had ever hoped for, but because he asked in faith, knowing that his prayer would be answered, so it was.
Joseph Smith, after he received the first vision from Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ, suffered greatly. Only his family believed what he said he saw. He was persecuted for his belief and for the Book of Mormon which he translated. He was persecuted until his death, until he was murdered at Carthage jail.
Christ,"[ suffered] his cross, and [bore] the shame of the world," (Jacob 1:8). He suffered for all of us. He suffered so that we might be made clean like unto him. Christ didn't need hope that his atoning sacrifice would be enough, because he KNEW it would be the last great sacrifice.
We need to have hope. We need to be able to hope for a better life after this. If we have faith then we must have hope, and if we have hope then we must have faith. We need to be like Christ and even Joseph Smith. We need to hope for better things to come even if we are being punished or bullied for what we believe. Christ has promised that if we are faithful unto him as we are being persecuted for our believing in him, we will be made strong.
One of my favorite scriptures in the new testament is Philippians 4:13, "I can do all things through Christ which strengtheth me." I know that if we all persevere through all of our trials in our lives with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope and faith, that we can be so happy. I have seen it work in my life and I know it will work in yours too.
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