3-3-2016

        Good Morning All!!     

        Psalm 33: 22; “Let your steadfast love, O Lord, be upon us, even as we hope in you.”

    I was reading an article the other day that was discussing the upcoming major league baseball season.  The author was projecting what he thought would be the season record for each team would be at the end of the season.  It was interesting to read what his expectations were, how he arrived at certain levels of this expectation that allowed him to make his projection.  Of course, it is just a guess by him.  It may be based on a very good, very sound analysis but still a guess.  By looking at his projection, my teams won’t offer much hope.  But, in baseball, I am the eternal optimist.  I like to think that if, “this guy doesn’t get hurt” and “this guy plays as well as he did a couple of years ago” and “the new guy fills in the hole in the pitching/hitting/defense” well, we have a chance to be in it at the end.  I can try to think that anyway; you have to have hope.

    Hope is a funny word.  I hope my baseball team will make to the World Series even though they finished under .500 last year.  Do I really have hope?  I really just have wishful thinking but I am not trying to rent a hotel room over the World Series time waiting for the first game.  I have no expectation of victory; I am not changing how I act today, I don’t expect anything to make a difference in my life based on my choice of ball teams to cheer for.

    Yet hope can make a difference in life.  Hope is the expectation for something good to happen in the future.  Can I really expect my team to be in the World Series?  No, probably not.  They haven’t won in many years and probably won’t this year so I do not change my life or outlook.  Yet when God promises me eternal life with him because of the death and resurrection of Jesus; I can have hope in that fact.  I can expect that God will keep this promise.  I can expect it because as I look back at the promises that God has made in the past; he has kept all of them.  I can fully trust and believe that God will keep those future promises because of his faithfulness in the past.  We can rely on that faithfulness into the future as well.  I have true, reliable hope in God’s promises.  I can look forward with total confidence because of God’s perfect faithfulness in the past.

    So this confidence allows me, actually encourages me to see my life today differently.  Since I have this great hope, this total confidence, I can see the events of today in a different light.  Today’s struggles and problems will not last forever.  Today’s problems have already been conquered by Jesus and he gives us that victory.  We can place our total trust in this truth.  We can rest in comfort and in peace today because we know what awaits us in the future.  Because we have eternal life; we have hope.      

Lord of all hope, in you we trust and in your Word do we have hope.  Give us that confidence in your mercy that we may live today in the certain hope of tomorrow’s blessings. Let us never stumble but always rest in you.  In your most precious name we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret