Sunday 14 April 2013

Simple Things - Hope


All great things are simple, and many can be expressed in single words: freedom, justice, honour, duty, mercy, hope." – Sir Winston Churchill.

Hope

“Remember, Red. Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.” So writes  Andy Dufresne in “The Shawshank Redemption”. In one of the greatest movies ever made, the wrongly imprisoned Dufrense gives his friend the greatest advice, even when everything seems bleak and impossible there is always hope.

There is awesome, great power in Hope. Hope can be the motivation that gets us up in the morning when everything around us is bleak. Hope can be the stronghold we trust when we watch our teenage children grow up. Hope is the power to anticipate the future and find pleasure in it.

Without hope we would fall into despair and worry overwhelms our hearts.

What we hope in also defines how we view everything; we see life through the eyes of hope in the imagination of our hearts. Often in the Bible, hope is the word that is used for a positive imagination that is working in your favour.

The heart is where we live from. It is the ground from which our life grows. Having a heart that is full of hope will begin to germinate faith and love in our lives. Hope rooted in the grace of God is the key to all God has provided for us In Christ. As the songwriter Edward Mote wrote:-

“My hope is built on nothing less
than Jesus' blood and righteousness
I dare not trust the sweetest frame
but wholly trust in Jesus' name.”

For the believer, united into Christ all our hope is in Jesus’ blood and righteousness. We can have natural hope in the weather report, the news etc.. But the finished work of the cross is all the hope we need, as it is written in Colossians 1:29 –

“Christ in you – the hope of glory.”

Our union with Christ, living and working through us is the anticipated pleasure in all the grace of God that is freely available to us. To hope in anything over Christ and his grace, is to settle for slice of toast when we can have an eight course banquet.

1 comment:

  1. without hope, what have we left you know...there is a reason faith, hope and love are put together...our greatest hope is in christ...i like to hope for our world as well, though def i think the hope in christ is more fruitful and less frustrating...smiles...thank you for the kind wishes sir...when i get back i will be sure to look you up...smiles.

    ReplyDelete

Thank you for visiting my blog. Please do not feel you have to comment. I enjoyed writing, listening to God and sharing his toughts. I hope you enjoyed reading, and may God who is able to make all grace, every favour and earthly blessing come to you in abundance, do far above all you can ask or think, according to the power that works within you. Be blessed.