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Bold Hope By--PSWD Devotions Chairman: Carolyn Stevens, Grace Lutheran, Rialto, CA How can we have bold hope in our world as it is today? Just listen to the TV news any day, in fact every day, where is there room for Hope? All kinds of dangers and fears are all around us. Where can we find a place for hope? The answer is found in the Bible but sometimes when we look we find frustrations and angers there, too! For instance in Ecclesiastes the Preacher says: "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity." He mentions the fact that there is a time to be born and a time to die and that is the way everything goes on, always the same. So way back in Old Testament times people knew that feeling of hopelessness. So what is the Use? It seems as though God does not care. Do you suppose He created the world and just put it on auto pilot? Maybe He just doesn't care at all. Yes, we can be tempted by such hopeless thoughts. It is easy to fall into the devil's trap of hopelessness. Where can we find hope? First we need to go to Gethsemane! (Matthew 26:37-50) There we can see how much God cares. There we see Jesus enduring the same fears, dangers, loneliness, pain and agony that people have sometimes. He even prays that God would take away the danger. He knows how it feels. He prayed to get out of all that danger. However, He still prayed to God so that may seem as though He had not reached the deep hopelessness we can feel. Now we should go to the cross and stand close enough so we can hear what Jesus says: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Have you ever felt that forsaken? That is when we should remember Jesus can say, "Been there, done that." He knows, and He endured it all because He cares so much for us. Do we still feel as though we are in the hopeless place? Then we need to go to the Garden on Sunday morning when the sun is coming up! There we find it is not just the sun that is up, it is the Son of God who has risen from the dead! There is where our BOLD HOPE
is. In John 15:19 Jesus says, "Because I live, you shall live
also." Jesus also promised to send the Holy Spirit as our
Comforter. He empowers us to tell the Good News to everyone and share the
BOLD HOPE. We will sing praises and give prayers of thanksgiving. |