Wednesday, December 4, 2024
For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal. 2 Corinthians 4:17-18
How Can We Hope?
It takes a deep abiding relationship with God to understand the hope of actually letting go. Letting go sometimes indicates giving up, but it also means releasing something. When we release things in faith into the hands of the One who is completely capable, we can have hope. He takes everything we get from trying to do it on our own – the hopelessness, the weariness, the fear, the worry, the exhaustion – and He exchanges it for the most peaceful hope we could ever have. Trying to do what we were not meant to do will always produce hopelessness, rather than hope, in our hearts.
The Lord is going to walk with us through the secret things we don’t know, as we trust in what we do know, that which God has revealed. Sam Nobles
What has God revealed? If you want to know what God has revealed, take a good look at your life. How has He been faithful to you? How has He shown up in your life? The revealed things are the promises He has given us and the examples we have in our lives, in he lives of those around us, and in the Bible of those promises fulfilled. We have Heavenly Father who is faithful and true and keeps His promises. Faith in a promise keeping God gives us the hope we need to keep going.
The objects of hope are different for everyone. For some, hope is waiting for financial relief from excessive debt. For some, hope is waiting for emotional healing in a broken relationship or marriage. For some, hope means waiting for physical healing from disease or illness. For some, hope means never giving up believing that a child that has strayed will come back to how they were raised. For others, hope means hanging on day after day and trusting God in a seemingly hopeless life. Hope can be seeing the light at the end of the tunnel in a life burdened by sin and shame. But for all of these the only real hope they have is in someone or something outside themselves. It is hard to keep the faith in difficult circumstances, but looking to Jesus for hope, trusting Him, and moving forward in obedience is the only answer.
Hope and Faith…they go hand in hand!
In order to have real hope, we must have faith. Faith is as strong as that which it believes in. Real hope is based on a strong faith in a loving God. It took many, many years for the prophecy of the coming King to finally come about, and truthfully, many of those watching and waiting probably lost hope and faith as well. But He came. He came and He brought hope to a hopeless world. The gift of the baby in the manger was realized hope. He came as man, lived and died on the cross for us so we could have eternal life, and hope. We cannot save ourselves and we cannot save each other. Jesus is the one and only true hope for all. He came as one of us and lived, died and rose from the dead. We now live in the hope that He is coming again!
Advent is a season of waiting and preparing – waiting and preparing for the coming of the only hope for you, me, and this fallen world. This Christmas season prepare your heart and make room for the coming Christ. Celebrate His birth and embrace the hope that is Jesus Christ.
