Hope? Seriously? Now?

“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit” (Romans 15:13)

Hope? Seriously? Now?

Do you even know what’s happening in our world? Have you seen the news? Have you read the papers? There’s a worldwide pandemic and there are protests all over the world.

Hope? Seriously? Now?

God’s answer – ABSOLUTELY!!!

The hope, joy, and peace God is talking about is not the absence of bad, evil, and suffering. What God offers in Jesus Christ is hope, joy, and peace in the midst of the bad, evil, and suffering.

• One day, there will be a day when all evil and suffering comes to an end. But we are not there yet.
• There once was a day when all there was no way to escape evil, suffering, and death.

Where we are is somewhere in between these two times.

The Kingdom of God has been ushered in by Jesus Christ, but the fullness of that Kingdom is yet to be realized. We live in the in between period. And as long as we live in this in between period, what we need is a hope, joy, and a peace in the midst of the bad, evil, and suffering. We need this kind of hope because this is the world we live in.

The psalmist wrote about this hope: “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change, though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea; though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble with its tumult” (Psalm 46:1-3).

God is our refuge and strength and a very present help in what? Trouble.

Therefore we will not fear when? The earth should change, the mountains shake in the heart of the sea, the waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble.

The hope, joy, and peace God offers us is not the absence of evil and suffering. It’s the ability to live in hope, joy, and peace even in the midst of evil and suffering.

How can this happen? Because we know in Jesus Christ evil and suffering never get the last word. Hope. Joy. Peace. That’s our reality. And there is no storm, protest, suffering, violence, pandemic that can take that away from those who belong to Jesus Christ.

Live in this hope today!

Hope? Seriously? Now?

ABSOLUTELY!!!