by Jason Hillier, campus pastor, Valley Creek Church Flower Mound
Hope. It seems like it’s getting harder and harder to hold onto hope these days. With every news cycle, with every new crisis, and with every disappointment, hope seems to slip through our hands and out of our hearts.
I don’t know how many times I have exclaimed out loud, “you’ve got be kidding me!” over the past four months only to catch wind of something even worse the next day. And as hope slips away, that overwhelming feeling creeps in; a feeling of hopelessness.
How about you? Have you been struggling to hold onto hope? If so, I have some good news for you! Hope is not based on bad news or the circumstances of the world, it is based on Jesus. Hope is the confident expectation of the goodness of God. Hope is a person, and His name is Jesus.
Romans 4:18 says “Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed…” Believed what? That God could do things that seemed impossible. Abraham believed that God was really good even though things looked really bad.
Can I just encourage you? God is good, even when the world is not. More specifically, God is good to you. And when you begin to actually believe that God is good to you, you begin to take hold of hope for yourself. You take hold of Jesus. And taking hold of Jesus is taking hold of “living hope”.
Jesus is our living hope. The hope that He offers never disappears with a bad news cycle. It cannot be lost due to difficult circumstances. The hope that Jesus offers won’t slip through your grasp. Why? Because you won’t slip through His grasp. Jesus will never leave you nor forsake you. He is always with you.
For those who know Jesus, this season offers an important reminder: You can hold onto hope because Hope is holding onto you.
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