11-19-2014

Good Morning All,

          Romans 15:13; “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.”

     It is the best of inventions and it is the worst of inventions.  I am talking about a cell phone.  At times I cannot live without it.  It is always with me so the members of the church can get hold of me.  I don’t have to arrive home from a visit to the hospital to find out someone is heading back.  As winter is making a very gruff appearance, I know I can be in contact if I need some assistance along the way.  It is a very useful tool.  The problem is it always seems to have a low battery and about to lose power.  I need to take care or it might not work for me when I need it.

    In a number of ways our spiritual life is the same.  Notice how the Apostle Paul writes in our verse.  The God of hope fill you with joy and peace so that you may abound in hope.  The God of hope wants you to abound in hope.  We are fully charged and when we are fully charged we abound in hope.  We can abound in hope because we are filled with joy and peace.  We are fully charged with God’s joy and peace.  We have his Spirit that allows us to abound in hope.  No matter what is going on in our life, no matter what the world throws at us; our hope can never be destroyed.

    Yet that hope, that certainty of God’s eternal grace and favor being actively given to us is something that we can and should hold onto.  This can aid us when a loved one is battling for existence and is somewhere between life and death while we can only watch and wonder; we can have hope.  We can have hope because we know that God is forever on our side and his grace will see us, and our loved one through.  This hope can aid us when relationships end and the pain seems beyond endurance; this hope can guide us to the one relationship that will never be ended by God and that is his redemptive love for us.  We have that hope and when life makes everything difficult and painful; hope will see us through.

   However, that hope needs to have a full charge and that charge is given to us by God when we listen to his words of comfort, promise and hope.  We hear those words when we read his Scriptures and cling to those words of hope.  God also charges that hope by listening to our cries using them to bring us to the complete awareness that our only hope is in him and his mercy.  Nothing else will work.

   So hope abides but it needs to be fully charged; charged by the hearing of God’s mercy and coming before his throne of grace with our cries of pain, of sorrow or of joy.  Keep the charge full; read God’s Word and study it often; pray often and the fully charged hope will see you through.

Gracious Father, you give us hope and fill us with peace and joy.  You give us the courage to face this world and all the demons that fill it knowing that in you we have total victory.  Keep us fully charged that we might forever know the certainty of your love and promise of life eternal that we may live forever as people of hope.  In the precious name of Jesus we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret