During this time of year, Christians focus on the birth of Jesus. He was the Son of God born to become the sacrifice for the sins of the world. Because He died on the cross and was resurrected conquering sin and death, Jesus is our only hope, peace, joy and unconditional love that we can experience both in this life and the next. It is only through Him that these life conditions are met. He is our Hope of eternal life because of His sacrifice. Titus 1:2 “…in hope of eternal life which God, who cannot lie, promised before time …
The Joy of Hope
Jeremiah 29:11 “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Everyone needs something to look forward to. Without a path, we wander aimlessly and without purpose. A friend once gave me a paper weight with a wise saying on it: “The purpose of life is a life of purpose.” I keep that paper weight on my desk at home to remind me to always have a purpose, the one God has for me. After my husband passed away a …
Faith
Faith Reading: James 2:14-26 Faith is the act of believing in something or someone when you have no concrete proof of existence or that the person will follow through with their promises. Hebrews 11:1 tells us faith is the essence of our hope, the evidence of the unseen. Having faith is so easy, even a child could do it. In Luke 18:16-17, Jesus tells his disciples that to enter the kingdom of God, people must have faith as a child would. The key word in the above definition of faith is “act.” It’s one thing to say we believe something, …
Backfire
There are times in our life when the thought-through plans can backfire on us. We get discouraged and ask God, “why me?” Don’t fret. God’s already got something better in mind. Let God revive your spirit of doubt into an overwhelming resolve of hope. Psalm 21:11 -”Though they plot evil against you and devise wicked schemes, they cannot succeed.” Dianne Petrey
Following the Holy Spirit From Start to Finish
I have a tendency to run ahead of God. I’ll sense a call to action and a surge of His Spirit within, then race ahead, without divine clarity on the how. Do you ever do that? Do you ever assume that first nudge is all you need, only to discover, once you’ve landed in a mess of your own making, that you were missing a few crucial pieces? Details and insight God would’ve provided, had you had the patience, humility, and self-control to wait? One Sunday, I came to church super frustrated regarding a particularly confusing and exhausting …
Trust Brings Overflowing Hope
“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” Romans 15:13 Overflowing hope. Hard to ponder the magnitude of what that means. Hope on steroids? Hope beyond imagination? Hope that defies the imagination? Perhaps it is all that and more. And it can be ours … it is ours! This overflowing hope is one of the many by-products that come to those of us who trust in Him. To trust in God is to rely upon Him. …
Love — Protects, Trusts, Hopes, Perseveres
Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. I Corinthians 13:6-7 If asked to define love, many of us would use words like joy, delight, and acceptance. Some might describe butterflies in the stomach, floating on air, or extreme happiness. But when Paul wrote to the Corinthians, he talked more about what love does than about how it feels. And he also used an extreme qualifier: always. He tells us that love protects, trusts, hopes, and perseveres. And he added that love always does these things. In …
Give Hope
Did you know that you can’t give something away that you don’t already possess. This is also true with hope. Encouraging others is a gift from God that I inspire others to achieve. “A Christian’s hope isn’t an escape or wishful thinking, as C.S. Lewis says, but something that a Christian is meant to do.” Can you have hope, but not faith? In God you can’t. Faith to a Christian is believing that God does what He says He will do. Hope is the forethought of that faith. I can hope that someone in my family will be saved, but …
Believe the Son or Reject the Son
Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on him. John 3:36 Everyone human being falls into one of two camps: 1. Believer 2. Non-believer Some might say, “I haven’t rejected Jesus – I just don’t believe in Him.” But by default, refusing to accept is equivalent to rejecting Him. There is no middle ground. Choosing not to choose is a choice in itself. And, like everything in life, choices bring consequences. Age has a way of humbling us and providing wisdom that can only …
Are We Hopeful?
As a Christian, our world is transparent, in that people are watching us. They are wondering, “how are they handling this crisis? How are they coping in these uncertain times?” I’ll be the first to admit, this has not been my favorite year so far. But, I’ve not lost hope. How can that be, you might ask? It’s because I know there’s a God that loves me, and cares for my well-being. God has brought me through some dreadful and scary storms and I’ve come out on the other side, stronger in my faith, and more aware of the awesome …
Fast Forward?
Have you ever met someone that likes to read the ending of a book, before they start to read the story? Or, some that likes to fast forward a movie and skip all the boring parts? Well, what if we could fast forward our lives? What if we could skip to 2021 and miss out on all this chaos we’re living in now? Did you know that it says in the Bible that we (Christians) are to welcome trials? That sounds crazy, right? Why would we want to be grateful for the birth of this pandemic? Christians know their future. …
Fixing Hope on Jesus
Through Him [Christ] we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. (Romans 5: 2-5) Hope. It is something that we have all experienced in our lives, whether it’s hoping for that one particular birthday gift, …