Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Are You Hope-full or Hope-less?

By Allen White


The former regulation is set aside because it was weak and useless (for the law made nothing perfect), and a better hope is introduced, by which we draw near to God. Hebrews 7:18-19


The Law is weak and useless because it only leads to hopelessness. The Law defeats, while hope proclaims victory. The Law highlights error. Hope overcomes.


What has ever succeeded in your life that you felt hopeless about? Nothing. It might have succeeded to fail, but nothing positive came from it.


The goal of the Christian journey isn’t to walk with our heads down feeling defeated. That doesn’t mean that we won’t endure difficult things. At the end of every difficult thing, we will also find hope.


“We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation. And this hope will not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love” (Romans 5:3-5, NLT).


It’s a little hard to believe that we run a better chance of gaining hope from our problems and trials than we do from following the old covenant. We can be right and feel miserable, or we can be completely accepted by God and have hope.


As Rick Warren says, “You can live a month without food. You can live three days without water. You can live a few minutes without oxygen. But, you can’t live a second without hope.”


How’s your hope? Do you find yourself hope-full or hope-less these days? I will leave you today with a blessing from Paul – “I pray that God, the source of hope, will fill you completely with joy and peace because you trust in him. Then you will overflow with confident hope through the power of the Holy Spirit” (Romans 15:13, NLT).


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