Expectant Hope

God promised those who follow Jesus a future of wholeness.
For God has destined us not for wrath but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. I Thessalonians 5:8

God promised those who follow Jesus to be raised from the dead.
Christ the first fruits was raised, then at his coming those who belong to Christ will be raised. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. I Corinthians 15:23, 26

We live in expectation that God will give this to us.
We hope for what we do not see—the redemption of our bodies—and we wait for it with patience. Romans 8:23,25

We know that we will receive this because God has given us the Holy Spirit.
When you had heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and had believed in him, you were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit; this is the pledge of our inheritance toward redemption as God's own people, to the praise of his glory. Ephesians 1:13-14

If we suffer for Christ, we rejoice, for we know that we will receive God’s good in the end.
Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven. Luke 6:22-23

Like the saints of old, we expect this promise to be fulfilled, even if we do not experience it in our lives.
All of these died in faith without having received the promises, but from a distance they saw and greeted them. If they had been thinking of the land that they had left behind, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Hebrews 11:12, 15-16

Those who mock our hope will be judged on the last day.
In the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and indulging their own lusts and saying, "Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since our ancestors died, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation!" The present heavens and earth have been reserved for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the godless. II Peter 3:3,4,7