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The Hope Connection by Peggy Culpepper
"We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure" (Hebrews 6:19 NIV).
Today our society is more connected than ever before. Four billion people own a cell phone and the number is growing. Cell phones have become such an integral part of our lives that we can hardly imagine this is actually not the case in less developed parts of the world. According to a survey by the European Information Technology Observatory, the percentage of people who don't have a cell phone is rapidly decreasing and is expected to drop below 2.4 billion or about one sixth of the earth's population by the end of 2009. The other two-thirds of the world's population already have one or more devices they used for talking, texting, listening to music, playing games interacting with friends on Face Book or surfing the Internet for information.
Christians everywhere are connected by this one connection:: "The Lord is my portion; therefore I will hope in him" (Lamentations 3:24). Hope has been described as "a future certainty grounded in a present reality." The present reality is the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead and our experience of Him. The future certainty is a new heaven and a new earth where righteousness dwells. (See 2 Peter 3:13.)
According to a computer software program (PC Study Bible), the concordance lists the word hope 166 times in Scripture, and one of the most-quoted passages in all of Scripture links faith, hope and love together. (See 1 Corinthians 13:13.) Hope is God's gift as well as God's command. Without this connection of hope, the Christian faith collapses and individuals give up.
Victor Shepherd, Professor of Theology at the University of Toronto, reveals the following attributes of hope:
- Hope keeps faith from collapsing under the burden of disappointment and delay.
- Hope keeps love from dissolving under the acids of frustration.
- Hope fortifies love and lends it resilience.
- Hope stiffens faith and forestalls collapse.
To the Christians in Corinth, Paul writes, "Therefore, my dear [sisters], stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain" (1 Corinthians 15:58, NIV). Apart from hope, we give up, quit working, quit struggling, quit sacrificing, quit living--simply quit. Is your work in vain? Is mine? Our Kingdom work can never be in vain. The God whose faithfulness we have known for ourselves is the God whose faithfulness we can trust for our work.
Just as we know that beneath the snow and barren trees of winter lies the anticipation of hope of a new springtime, we can glorify in our present experience of the risen Lord. This eagerness connects us with the prophet Jeremiah and we cry out, "The Lord is my portion; therefore I will hope in him" (Lamentations 3:24).
Amid all the trouble facing our world today, I refuse to live without hope--my eternal connection!
Copied from Church of God International Women's Ministries "Communique"
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