“This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, a hope both sure and steadfast and one which enters within the veil, where Jesus has entered as a forerunner for us, having become a high priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.” – Hebrews 6:19-20 (NASB)
This daily devotional for men on hope centers on one of Scripture’s most vivid images: an anchor holding a soul steady against the pull of the current. Hebrews 6:19-20 does not describe hope as a wish or a crossed-fingers feeling. It describes hope as a fixed point, something that holds.
What This Verse Means
The anchor image comes right after verse 18, where the writer urges believers to take hold of “the hope set before us.” In a 1996 sermon titled “Hope Anchored in Heaven,” published by Desiring God, pastor John Piper notes that hope can mean three different things: a feeling inside a person, a future reality still waited on, or a person or event that makes confidence certain. Piper argues the anchor in this passage is the second kind: the future God has already promised.
The writer calls that anchor sure and steadfast. It is certain, and it will not give way. It is lodged “within the veil,” a reference to the curtain that closed off the holy of holies, the inner room of the tabernacle where the high priest met God once a year with a blood sacrifice. Jesus entered heaven’s holy of holies once for all with his own blood, Piper explains, so his work of atonement is complete and permanent. The anchor does not drift because it is tied to something that cannot change.
Living It Today
Men carry a lot of weight: providing for a household, showing up at work, staying present for a marriage or for kids, wrestling with decisions that do not have easy answers. Feelings swing during a week like that. A good day at the office does not guarantee a good night at home, and a hard season does not mean every season ahead will be hard.
Hebrews 6:19-20 points past those swings to something that does not move. Verse 18 calls believers to “lay hold of” that hope. Piper describes that as banking on it, finding security and satisfaction in it, and wanting it the way a man who has been up all night watches the window for first light. That is not passive. It is an active grip on a promise that was settled before the hard day started.
Piper points to John Stam, a 27-year-old missionary to China, as an example of a man who held that anchor in the worst moment a person can face. In December 1934, Communist soldiers led Stam and his wife, Betty, to their execution in China’s Anhui province. When someone along the road asked where they were going, Stam answered, “We are going to heaven.” His hope was not shaken because it was never anchored to his circumstances in the first place.
Few men will face what Stam faced. Most will face something smaller: a layoff, a diagnosis, a strained relationship, a quiet sense that life has not gone the way it was supposed to. The invitation of this passage is the same regardless of scale.
Hope does not ask a man to pretend things are fine. It asks him to trust that the anchor holds even when the water gets rough.
Reflection Questions
Where am I placing my hope right now: in circumstances that can shift, or in a promise that cannot?
What would it look like this week to “lay hold” of hope rather than just hope for the best?
Is there a decision or a hard season where I need to remember the anchor is already set, even if I cannot feel it?
A Prayer for Today
Lord, thank you for a hope that does not depend on how my week is going. When circumstances pull at me, remind me that my anchor is set in what Christ has already done, not in what I can control. Give me the strength to hold onto that hope today, to trust it is sure, and to walk through whatever comes with steady confidence in your promise. Amen.
For more reflections like this, read the devotional for men on patience, the devotional on speaking truth in love or the devotional on humility. The passage discussed here is explored further at Desiring God.
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