May the God of all hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.
It has been said that someone without hope is the most dangerous person in the world. Those who have no hope are lost in a sea of misery and dismay. Most people have some form of hope. Some hope in things; some hope in pleasure; some hope in people; and others in positions. It is different for all. But what is the same for all is that our hopes and dreams are the driving force in the pursuits of our lives.
In the passage above God is called the God of all Hope. He wants us to have the beautiful treasure of hope. But the hope that God wants us to have is different from what the world offers us. The world tells us that You Only Live Once (YOLO) so we should fulfill ourselves in the moment. Get yours now. Do you. Just Do It are common slogans that speak to us of fulfilment. Advertisements tell us that we need this or that to be fulfilled. We feel the pressure from our own sinful nature that screams at us to let sin's pleasures be the hope of our fulfilment. We have all tried those things and chased some of them with a passion--always hoping. But Jesus said it best to the woman at the well. "Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give to them will never thirst." (John 4:14) Those temporary things never satisfy for long.
The temporary can't be eternal. Focusing on what is seen here on this earth is not the true hope that endures. It is the painful process of always being left empty. The true treasure is changing our focus from what is temporary to what is eternal. When we have hope in God's promises, we have an anchor for our lives that we keep us from being tossed back and forth by the winds of our desires.
How do we gain hope? We find hope in the treasure of God's Word. We find hope by connecting to Jesus. When we begin to read the exceedingly great and precious promises of God, we will find ourselves filled with the Hope in the God who cannot fail and cannot lie. We will find ourselves believing in the very God who parted the Red Sea and who raised the dead. We will find ourselves looking at this life from a different perspective--one that is eternal and looks to the reward in the eternal life to come with our Great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. That is a Beautiful Treasure.
Blessings to you!
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