As human
beings, we place our hope in many things: people, places, careers, stock
markets, etc. We often fail, however, to realize that our only lasting hope is
in God.
Jesus
secured our hope by His death, burial and resurrection. His sacrifice touches
every part of our life, even the most devastating moment we could ever
experience.
At
salvation, our hope in God turns to faith, which is authentic, powerful and
enables us to enjoy God's company as our loving and nurturing Father.
His presence
opens the door for us to enter into the citizenship of heaven, the Body of
Christ, the circle of His beloved children, His Saints and called out ones. We
are no longer pilgrims and sojourners (Philippians 3:20-21; Ephesians 2:19).
For those of
us who believe in God, this hope is tangible evidence of the calling He gives
to each one of us. We inherit His glorious riches and enjoy His great power and
assurance now and forever (Ephesians 1:18-20).
Moses failed
to deliver God's people when he killed the solitary Egyptian soldier who
mistreated his Jewish brother. He ran from the consequences of that behavior
and hid in the desert.
He forgot
that God allowed Him to be raised in the king's castle and that He was actually
a child of the almighty King. His self-image was polluted by Satan's lies and
accusations of his failure.
This occurs
in our life as well. Satan throws our past up into our face over and over in
order to render us ineffective in any ministry for the Lord. We are riddled
with self-doubt.
We can trade
God's truth about us for the devil's recrimination and lies about our failings.
Taking our journal, we sit in silent meditation and listen as God speaks His
truth about who we really are and how He feels about us. ( www.theophostic.com
)
We can read
the back of the book, the last two chapters of Revelation, and understand that
God returns to us everything which Satan attempted to steal from us in the
first chapters of Genesis.
Prayer:
Father God,
Your truth ignites our passion to have more of You in our life and to walk in
Your Spirit and will for our life (Galatians 5:15-25). We live as a testimony
of Your existence for the world to see. We read daily affirmations from Your
Word about who we are in Christ, which transform our thought life from a
negative image to a Godly one (Galatians 3; 2 Corinthians 5; Romans 8).
Your Spirit
testifies that we are Yours and He breathes the breath of life into our spirit until
He transforms us from one level of spiritual maturity to the next (Romans 8:16;
2 Corinthians 3:18). We overcome the world and our doubts and fears through the
victory that overcomes the world - our faith in Your faithfulness (1 John 5:4)
- and You empower us by Your Spirit as we walk in Your will moment by moment
throughout the day.
Thought for
the Day:
Regardless
of what we view with our human understanding and vision, we live by the faith
from God's promises about the unseen world, which are just as real and tangible.
