The Calling of Hope

What a great passage in Ephesians 1:  ^…that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might…

Let’s pray this passage together in our words...

Lord Jesus, 

Father of glory, 

please give us your Spirit of wisdom and revelation, 

please open our eyes and our hearts to realize and experience the hope you have called us to

– to understand the riches of our glorious inheritance because we belong to you 

– to be wise to the great power you extend toward us 

– that which cannot be measured 

– just if we believe 

- according to your strength 

– not ours.

Amen.

Filled

Romans 15:13 says May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.

Wow. Sounds like a perfect life.

The God of hope residing in us.

Being filled with all joy and peace in believing.

Having the power of the Holy Spirit.

Abounding in hope.

This is the prayer of this writer to his readers, and it’s a good one.  It doesn’t pray for a life without pain, a life of floating down a quiet river, or a life free from challenges.

It does, however, indicate that we can be hopeful, joyful, peaceful, powerful, and again more than full of hope, because of the Holy Spirit within us – no matter what.

That’s the prayer I’m praying today.  

Will you believe with me?

Don't Be Slothful

Romans 12 says, Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality.

Hmmm.  “Slothful in zeal.”  I feel that way sometimes, just too lazy to worship, to praise, or rejoice.  And here, I’m told to NOT be that way, but rather to be “fervent in spirit.” How so?

By serving the Lord.

Serving the Lord certainly requires that we give to others and show hospitality.  But in this verse it also says that rejoicing in hope, being patient in tribulation and constant in prayer is serving the Lord, as well.

We need to do both.  We must continue to be joyful, patient and constant, while we are serving.

That’s a hard call, sometimes, because in serving others we can sometimes become weary. But that usually happens when we put our focus on those we are serving, hoping to be rewarded by them. 

When our focus shifts to Him, this enables us to continue in zeal and fervency as we serve, knowing that He sees and knows, and rewards.

Feeling a bit slothful today?  Look at Him as you wait, hope, and serve. 

Hope Production

Romans 5 says 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.

Look at the three precursors to hope: rejoicing in suffering, endurance, and character.

One would think that suffering, endurance, and character building might crush us, instead of producing hope.  But quite the contrary.

When soldiers go to boot camp, the purpose is to make them suffer, push them to endure, and build up character that cannot be broken.  And it works, usually.  But there are many soldiers who go out to battle and still crumble under the fierce intensity of war and loss of lives, and they return home without hope.  That is indeed sad.

But in this verse, we are reminded that God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit.  That pour is like concrete – it’s a firm foundation that cannot be cracked or broken because of Him – not us.

Trials will come upon all of us, but when we rely and stand up on God’s love inside of us, we can rejoice, endure, and come out with character that stands up and believes in the goodness of God – even if we feel as though we’re broken into pieces.  And it’s because his hope rises, restores, and heals.

That’s the kind of God, that’s the commander, we serve.

Yes He Is

Luke 24:21 says, But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things happened.

Jesus walked among his disciples and he told them what would occur – that he would be taken, crucified, and killed.  That they heard.  But he also told them that he would rise again.  That they didn’t understand, so they didn’t hear it.

Here in this verse they are pining over their “lost” hope because they had been disappointed that their redeemer, their hope for a future, was dead.  And now it’s been three days, time enough to solidify the surety of his death.  They completely missed the part where their redeemer told them he would live again.

Sometimes, in our sorrow and disappointment we lose hope because we forget to listen to the words of hope that reside within us, within his word.

Jesus has promised hope for our future, one of good and not evil, one of eternity with him, free from sorrow and pain. 

We must not forget ALL of Jesus’ words to us.  When darkness is all around us, we have to remember that He is the light, and the light dispels the darkness.

He is our redeemer, our hope, our future.

Call it to Mind

Lamentations 3: 21, 22 But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end;

There really is no other steadfast love in this world than that of our Lord.  People can “turn on a dime,” when they get angry, become suspicious, take an offense, or any number of reactions in a relationship.  Friends come and go, and spouses can only love us so much, because there is this need for the love of the Lord deep inside each one of us – the longing for a steadfast love that never ends.

Mercies are only given to those who deserve it, in this world.  If we can prove our innocence, establish witnesses to vouch for us, and appear beyond reasonable doubt to be without guilt, then we are shown mercy and set free to go.

However, remember this.

Our hope in Christ is never dashed because his love IS the kind that is always there and his mercies ARE the ones that are new every morning.

Therefore, the writer of this verse says, “I have hope.”

Hope should never be lost as long as we know Christ and his love and mercy shown to us.

He Our God

Jeremiah 14:22 says Are there any among the false gods of the nations that can bring rain?

Or can the heavens give showers? Are you not he, O Lord our God? We set our hope on you, for you do all these things.

It’s funny.  When our nation is in a severe drought, even those who don’t usually pray say that we need to pray.  When there’s a tragedy of untold proportions where many die at the hand of a crazy person, the newscasters will ask the viewers to pray.  And when we sit beside the bed of a dying loved one, we all pray.

Prayer is something that innately occurs when we realize that there is no one but God who can intervene in some situations.  We can’t make it rain, we cannot cause the sun to rise or the moon to appear in the night sky.  We alone cannot even breathe – for He is the breath of life.

There is no one else, no other thing, and no other hope but God.

And in Him we should believe and hope, because He loves us, and it’s his good pleasure to hear our cries and answer.

Set your hope on him, for he does great things for you and yours.

More Hope

Proverbs 26 and 29 asks a couple of sobering questions:

Do you see a person wise in their own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for them.

Do you see someone who speaks in haste? There is more hope for a fool than for them.

There have been times when I’ve been wise in my own eyes, going about securing my future, establishing my career, making my mark…all to look good in the eyes of others.  And then all of that crumbled.

There have been times when I’ve spoken in haste and wished I cold retract what I said, but I could not because words go out but don’t come in…and the damage is done.

There is no hope for a life lived being wise in our own eyes or speaking in haste everything that comes to mind.  Destruction lies in the path of those who live that way.

Our wisdom (remember the honey from yesterday?) must be from above – pure and gentle and sweet.

Our words must be spoken thoughtfully, in love, with hesitation as we think before we speak.

Want hope?

Let go of your own wisdom and sputtering tongue, and taste his honey and speak his love…

Eat Honey

Proverbs is one of my favorite books in the Bible – full of verse after verse of wisdom!

Eat honey, my son, for it is good; honey from the comb is sweet to your taste. Know also that wisdom is like honey for you:  If you find it, there is a future hope for you, and your hope will not be cut off.

Honey is a natural sweetener.

Wisdom is like honey.

Therefore, wisdom sweetens our lives.

There’s nothing sweeter than a life full of hope, full of hope for the future.

When I watch the news, when I think of the future for my kids and grandkids, when I even think too much about tomorrow, I can start to worry, fret, and wonder if there’s anything good coming down the road…

However, the wisdom of truth is to place my hope in Him.

And when I do, my future is naturally sweet…I find that my future is good…and I find that it tastes good.

Yes!

Psalm 62 is a follow up to yesterday’s verses: Yes, my soul, find rest in God; my hope comes from him.

Two chapters later, the psalmist is answering his own questions that he posed to his soul. 

He speaks again to his soul – which is most healthy for us to do!

Yes!

He tells his soul to come into agreement with where his hope comes from, and he instructs his soul to find rest in God.

There are days when my soul wants wander, to flitter around in the dark, or to lie dormant due to exhaustion.

It’s on days like those that I have to question my soul, cause it to stir to arise, and beckon an answer from the very depths of my being.

“Yes!” I will trust in You! 

“Yes!” My soul will rest in You.

What’s your answer today?

Why?

Psalm 42:5 Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.

This same verse is repeated several times in a couple of chapters.  I wonder why…

I think it takes many repeats of telling ourselves something before we believe it.  And it takes telling ourselves out loud, talking to our soul, in order for our soul to respond.

It might be a good idea today to speak to yourself.  Ask yourself why you’re so down and disturbed?  Then think about the answer.  It may be a loss of a job, a friendship that has ended, a scary diagnosis, a death of a friend, or worse…and you have every “right” to be down and disturbed.

But there is an important word in the next sentence… “PUT”

Our souls will stay down where we’ve placed them when we have sunk into despair, until we choose to look up and place them elsewhere.

He’s waiting with hands wide open for us to put our hope in Him, and he will not disappoint.

What Are You Looking For?

Psalm 39:7 But now, Lord, what do I look for? My hope is in you.

On restless days sometimes, I look for something to do that’s fun, fulfilling and exciting.  And oftentimes, after I do that “something” I feel disappointed, unfulfilled and restless again.

Other days I look for peace when I feel turmoil, and I look here, out there, and all around to find something to quiet my soul.

And still other times, I look for joy in the mundane, in the routine, in the blah-ness of the week. And it seems elusive, like a butterfly that never sits still long enough for a photo.

But this verse asks a question and then answers it.

What am I looking for?

All of the above and everything else is need is found in Him.  It’s in his word, his truth, and in His presence.

He is with me, and he is with you, today.  He is what you’re looking for.

Where's Your Hope?

Psalm 33:17, 18 says A horse is a vain hope for deliverance; despite all its great strength it cannot save. But the eyes of the Lord are on those who fear him, on those whose hope is in his unfailing love…

I don’t have a horse, but I have friends who do.  And if I had one, I think I’d feel like I had a strong friend who could carry me away from trouble if I needed him to.  In fact, horses are depicted in movies as doing just that – from the old westerns to modern day romances – horses draw carriages and pull couples out for a night on the town – and horses flee with a rider to rescue him from trouble.

However…horses cannot save.  In fact, nothing we own, control, or have as part of possessions can save us. 

The One who can save us is the Lord.

His eyes are ever on us and our hope is in his love that never fails.

Yes, God has eyes in the back of his head just like our moms told us they had, when we were kids.  But our moms’ eyes closed at night to sleep.  God never slumbers.

And the only place where we should place our hope is in someone who loves us without fail – every morning – and that’s God.

Where’s your hope?

All Day

Psalm 25:5 says, 

Guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior, and my hope is in you all day long.

In the morning he will guide us in his truth, if we read it and believe it.

At noontime, he will teach us and instruct us and we will learn and grow in him.

In the night, we will not fear because he is God our savior – our hope.

All day long – morning – noon – and night – we have hope.

What time of day is it right now, as you are reading this?  

Call out to him for the truth, for guidance, for learning, and receive his hope. 

Hope is with you 24/7.

Everything

God has this great conversation with Job near the end of the book and asks Job many questions.  One of them is this:

Any hope of subduing it is false;  the mere sight of it is overpowering. No one is fierce enough to rouse it.  Who then is able to stand against me?  Who has a claim against me that I must pay? Everything under heaven belongs to me.

He was referring here to a great sea monster, one which no man can tame. 

Sometimes we see God as a monster, don’t we? 

Here Job is asked two questions, and then God makes a statement.

Everything under heaven belongs to me.

That statement right there should bring hope to the hopeless. 

God is never unaware or taken aback by the state of our little world that surrounds us.  No sickness, no death, no tragedy surprises him or thwarts his plans for us.  You see, he created us for a purpose and an eternity with him without sorrow or tears or pain. 

So this pain that we endure now is temporary.  And though we raise a fist against God and demand that he must intervene on our behalf, the truth is that we belong to him and we can rest in that peace in knowing He’s got it all under control.

Our life is not out of hand – it’s in His hands.

And if you read the last few chapters of Job, you’ll see an amazing deliverer who restores all that has been taken in ways that are astounding and full of hope.

The Churning

Job 30 recounts Job’s suffering again, Yet when I hoped for good, evil came; when I looked for light, then came darkness. The churning inside me never stops; days of suffering confront me.

I remember when we sold our first house and went to closing, so excited about our future new house we were building, only to find out the lady who bought our house backed out.  She was no longer interested.  And here we sat with no sale, and a new house to pay for. Our excitement swiftly ended because we hoped for the end of one payment and the beginning of a new one, to only end up with two houses – and not sure what to do.  And it only went downhill from there…for the next five years.  Churning is a great word – days of suffering with burglaries and fires and more – as we sat and wondered what went wrong with  our hope for our future.

That was nothing, compared to Job’s trials.  He had placed his hope in God only to see more evil arrive.  He had looked for the light, only to be blanketed by darkness.  And inside, he was churning.

Have you had that churning feeling?  It hurts, it stirs, and it won’t stop.

Jesus himself suffered more than all of us have ever suffered – and he too churned I’m sure – when his friends left him, His father forsook him, and he was left to die – on the cross.

But remember the resurrection?  Remember Job’s end?  Remember my own life, now that the past is gone?

God comes.  God delivers.  God stops the churning and restores the light and the hope.  That’s who He is.  And suffering only lasts for a moment, completes its work, and then we rise – because greater is He who lives in us than he who is in the world.

Where is Hope?

Job 17 finds Job asking questions again…

If the only home I hope for is the grave, if I spread out my bed in the realm of darkness,

if I say to corruption, ‘You are my father,’  and to the worm, ‘My mother’ or ‘My sister,’

where then is my hope—who can see any hope for me?

This is one of those “if/then” statements I love in the Bible, again.

If we have given up hope and want to die, if we have chosen to lie down in the darkness of despair, and we have succumbed to the “family” of corruption in our lives….what hope do we then have?

There is a time to shake ourselves out of the miserable thoughts that crowd our mind.

Thoughts of the grave, darkness, and corruption are nothing but lies.  Why?  Because that is not the hope or the truth of the believer.

He has conquered the grave, he has brought us out of darkness, and righteousness, peace and joy are ours in Him.  That’s the truth.  That’s what our thoughts should be.

We can take control of our minds by training them to think on the truth and not on lies.

And if we don’t? We won’t be able to see any hope at all.

The Scent of Water

Job 14 now includes imagery about hope, At least there is hope for a tree:  If it is cut down, it will sprout again, and its new shoots will not fail.  Its roots may grow old in the ground

and its stump die in the soil, yet at the scent of water it will bud and put forth shoots like a plant.

We have a stump of a tree in our back yard that died.  It died.  We cut it down.  And all that’s left is a stump.  No life is going to come out of that tree that died.

However, we have other trees that we cut back each year, back to bare branches, and they return. 

“At the scent of water” their leaves appear.

Who knew water had a scent?  And isn’t it amazing what water can do to a plant that’s shriveled up?

Trees do die.  But there’s a verse in Psalm that says if a tree is planted by the water, it’s leaf will not wither and it will die.  Trees that stop drinking die.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve never put a glass of water up to my nose to sniff it because it’s neutral – no smell at all.  However, when a dying plant or person gets anywhere near hope (the water) they will run to it and drink it up like a thirsty man in a desert, until they are refreshed, renewed, and able to rise and walk…out of the desert.

We may feel we are at a place where we are cut down and left to die.  But God has promised to never leave us.  See if you can lift your face and catch the scent of water nearby.

And then drink…to your heart’s content.

Yet I Will

Job 13 houses of the most quoted verses of Job, Though he slay me, yet will I hope in him;

I will surely defend my ways to his face. Indeed, this will turn out for my deliverance,

After all of his so-called friends trying to “encourage” and instruct Job in the “ways” of God as they understood them, Job could have been even more discouraged and hopeless.

However, Job makes a statement that I’ve heard others copy when they are feeling hopeless and about to die.  Their hope is in HIM.

Then Job does a cool thing.  He states that the God he knows is a defender of the weak and a deliverer of those in trouble.  He knows God and his character.  He knows that when life seems like death, there is always hope.

Job finds a way to look ahead to his deliverance – because he knows the deliverer.

Remember those exciting adventure type movies where the characters get stranded on a ship lost out to sea, or on a desert island, and they lose all contact with anyone?  It’s entertaining to watch them try to survive without any knowledge of a rescue in the near future.

However, it’s not entertaining at all to find ourselves removed from everything familiar and destitute without hope.

We are not characters on a TV show, but we are characters in God’s story – we are his family – his sons and daughters – and he will never let us go.  He will come and deliver us from our pain and sorrow.

Indeed He will.

Still Hope

Job 6 goes on, “What strength do I have, that I should still hope? What prospects, that I should be patient?

Have you ever thought these same questions out loud?  Your strength is completely gone and you see nothing on the horizon to hope for?

There some days, months, or even years that we grow absolutely weary because of continual heartache, hard times, or suffering and we really cannot muster up any strength or prospects of hope.

Job’s friends weren’t helping, either, but only heaping upon him a bunch of nonsense that only made him feel worse.

It’s okay to question.  God can handle our weakness and impatience with waiting on Him to move, and answer.  He’s a big God.

And that’s what we have to be reminded of in times like these.  He has a vantage point, an eye, and a heart that knows all and sees all -  and he has us in the palm of his hand, and our future is a good one – and it is secure.

Sometimes that’s all we can stand upon, and when we do – it’s a solid foundation. 

Crush Me?

Job 6 finds Job wanting to just die, because he has suffered so much:

Oh, that I might have my request, that God would grant what I hope for,  that God would be willing to crush me, to let loose his hand and cut off my life!

Have you ever wanted to die?  You think it would be easier than facing the pain, enduring the same, or going through the darkness.  So you just hope to disappear for good.

That’s what Job hoped for.  He hoped for God to let go of his life – to stop breathing life into his nostrils.

When we are hopeless to the point of death, we are in effect stating that our creative God does not have the power to release healing, hope, and restoration to us.  In other words, we are declaring to our maker that we are done with the life he has given us.  We are rising up against the one who maintains our hope and telling him that we cannot live any longer, because we are in pain.

However, God breathes into us his breath for eternity when we accept his Son, and he will not grant us the prayer of death just because we are in pain.  He will grant us the request of strength to endure, hope against all odds, and dignity to bear it all without shame.

If you’re in devastating circumstances today, don’t ask for death.  Ask for life.  You are still breathing and that means there is still purpose.  That means your God isn’t through with you yet, even in the middle of the pain.

Instead of hoping for death…put your hope in Him…the life giver.