Hope Restored

In Paul's introduction to the book of Titus he says in verse 2, "in the hope of eternal life, which God, who cannot lie, promised long ages ago..."

Hope is a very big word these days. We think of hope when there is a sickness in the family. We rally around hope when we find ourselves in financial difficulties. We are never short of hope of the outcome of a sporting event. And we also hope that America rebounds from the terrible difficulties she finds herself in today.

We look to our leaders for this hope. We hope they have the intellect to bring us through the storm and safely to the other side, with as little damage as possible. Some are experiencing extreme difficulties today as they open the quarterly reports of their 401K's to find that they have lost even more of their retirement. Some have lost ALL of it already. There are plenty of reasons, in the world for us to have hope and they are, for the most part, very valid.

But without minimizing these tribulations, I believe that there is a hope that most of us, as Christians share, that begins and ends with Jesus Christ. I can remember reading the story of the disciples all huddled together in the "upper room" after the Crucifixion of Jesus, feeling that the leadership of the world had just destroyed all of their hope by hanging Him to a cross. In fact, they buried their hope in a borrowed tomb. But in John 20:26,27 Jesus declares to his band of disciples "Peace be with you." Relatively shocking to the disciples, I'm sure, but they witnessed Thomas placing his finger in His hands and touching His side and making his wonderful declaration of hope when he said "My Lord and my God!" Hope restored.

What we know and understand from study of the scripture and our faith is that even a tomb does not have the ability to hold onto our HOPE which is in Christ Jesus. We believe that Jesus, the Son of God was born of a virgin, He ministered on this earth for about 3 years, was crucified, buried and then rose from the dead. An act that no other, claiming to be God, has been able to achieve.

So in the middle of chaos, even this present day chaos that we experience, we can still have hope. Oh of course, they can take our money, perhaps our cars and homes, they can literally destroy the America that we have cherished for a lifetime, but they cannot have our "souls" and Jesus Christ, the Nazarene (the Son of God) made sure of that when He made that trip to Calvary to pay off our mortgages in heaven. Jesus said in John 16:33, "These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world."

I know that we all place a lot of hope on leadership to put things back on track so that our lives may experience some peace again but remember the real peace, the real hope that you and I share that is the hope of eternity is in Jesus Christ. Jesus came to secure our souls, not our bank accounts.

So when you feel like there may be no hope in fixing problems that we may have gotten ourselves into, remember that Jesus Christ came that we might have life, and that life in His name.

Dave