Tag Archives: Hope

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Enduring Love

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We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.  By this, love is perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment; because as He is, so also are we in this world.  1 John 4:16-17

We all like to be reminded that we are loved…especially by those who are dear to us.  My wife was out of town this weekend and I wasn’t feeling the greatest on several levels.  At one point, I considered staying home from church on Sunday morning.  However, realizing that it was not a wise choice in that moment and that there are others who would love to attend a worship service, but are unable, I rose to the occasion and went.  During the praise time, the worship team led us in “How Deep the Father’s Love for Us”.  For various reasons, I desperately needed to hear those words.

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Sing praise to the Lord

The value of praise

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Shout joyfully to the Lord, all the earth; break forth and sing for joy and sing praises.  Sing praises to the Lord with the lyre, with the lyre and the sound of melody.  With trumpets and the sound of the horn shout joyfully before the King, the Lord.  Psalm 98:4-6

Praise when things are going well, when we are blessed by a great time of Christian fellowship and learning, or amid a large body of believers is usually fairly easy, but what about the dark days…the days of pain and suffering? As I’ve mentioned many times, music is important to me.  I love to listen to it, I love to sing it, and I love to dance to it.  What I love most is singing to praise God.  As much as I love it, there have been two periods in my life that required a bit of effort to sing praise.  The first was a longer period (several years) from the time it was determined that I was chronically ill until God began to instruct me regarding the value of trials and pain with respect to my soul.  During that time, songs like “Blessed Be” and “Untitled Hymn” became very important as I struggled understand and to come to peace with God’s plan for me.  The second period was the years from 2012 to 2015 in which we dealt in varying degrees with the various health issues of our fathers and their deaths. While I had previously learned about God goodness even in trials, the struggle was still difficult and there were many times that I had to will the praise out of my mouth.  Rather than succumbing to the urge to be silent, I knew that praise to God is especially critical in difficult times.  What makes it so critical is the message that it sends.

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Lesser Things

Living for Eternity

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Brethren, join in following my example, and observe those who walk according to the pattern you have in us. For many walk, of whom I often told you, and now tell you even weeping, that they are enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction, whose god is their appetite, and whose glory is in their shame, who set their minds on earthly things.  Philippians 3:17-19

I love music and listen to it quite a bit.  Sometimes I use it to calm me or rearrange my thoughts, sometimes I listen to get motivated and at other times it’s for the pure enjoyment of it.  My collection is quite varied in both genres and eras as it ranges from the 1930s to the present.  Recently, I was at the gym and the song “Lady Godiva” by Peter and Gordon started playing.  While some may not appreciate the song, I listen to it occasionally as a reminder to not get caught up in “lesser things”.  In case you’re not familiar or haven’t heard the song in the last five decades, the lyrics tell the story of a young and beautiful woman pursues fame and fortune.  In the process, she compromises and forfeits all of the things that made her beautiful, but never achieves the fame that she desires and becomes so poor that she can’t afford her clothes.  God offers us so much, but too often people get off course with respect to godliness and forfeit their faith for lesser things that are useless and meaningless in light of eternity.  Time and time again we are reminded in scripture to pursue God and His truth in various ways and the reasons are clearly explained to us.  However, some reject the concept, some ignore it, while others struggle with it.  Three reasons why it may be difficult are: hope, pride, and fear.

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Christ Our Redeemer

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Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin.  Hebrews 4:14-15 

The small group that my wife and I participate in is currently studying the statements of faith that our church affirms.  As I began preparing for a study on the statement related to Christ, I thought it would be appropriate to walk through it here since the Christian world will be celebrating Easter in a few days.  It’s a brief but great reminder of what we are celebrating and is as follows:  “We believe in Jesus Christ, His virgin birth, sinless life, vicarious death, burial, bodily resurrection, His ascensions to the right hand of the Father and His personal future return in power and glory.”

Why Christ?

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Looking Upward

Is God Enough For You?

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And my God will supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus.  Philippians 4:19

I was recently included in an invitation to participate in an activity.  For various reasons I declined; any one of them had sufficient merit to opt out, but together, the choice was self-directing.  A few days after the initial invitation, a second was received.  It came on a rather busy day and not wanting to forget to respond, I sent a brief message indicating my choice.  Rather quickly, I received a reply questioning my decision which was followed by a volley of emails that indicated offense for both my choice and my means of communicating it.  The end result was yet another hurt and a broken relationship that increased my desire to withdraw from most people and especially pull away from the Christian community.

One of the difficulties for those dealing with life’s trials and/or the ongoing challenges of chronic illness is the focus.  We all face various circumstances that disappoint and frustrate us giving rise to the need of confidantes to whom we share our thoughts and occasionally vent.  However, when our thoughts become self-absorbed, we lose our perspective and cause damage in our vital relationships.

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Your Consolations Delight My Soul

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“If the Lord had not been my help, my soul would soon have dwelt in the abode of silence.  If I should say, ‘My foot has slipped,’ Your lovingkindness, O Lord, will hold me up.  When my anxious thoughts multiply within me, Your consolations delight my soul.”  Psalm 94:17-19

I was preparing to go to yet another funeral this morning and was looking for peace within my own heart.  In this case, it was not a close friend, but rather the husband of someone I admire and have great affection for.  His widow is a dear soul and a godly woman who has been so kind to me that I ache for her.  We also have various connections with some of her children through church and business dealings.  In fact, her son is one of the morticians that helped with both of my parents’ funerals.  In short they are a family that I have great respect for as they regularly exhibit both kindness and integrity.  With that on my mind as I spent time with God this morning, He brought Psalm 94 to me…or more specifically, verse 19 and reminded me that this is one of those times to trust Him to be all that we need.  While the context of the psalm speaks to “evil doers”, the basic message still applies to all of our circumstances.  Consider each verse carefully.

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Peace of Christmas

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“For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; and the government will rest on His shoulders; and His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.”  Isaiah 9:6

The passage above is a familiar one…especially at this time of year.  I have heard and seen it more than a few times in the past month; have you as well?   As much as you’ve heard it, have you allowed it to pierce your soul and impact your sense of wellbeing?  In other words, is Christ really your Prince of Peace and are you at peace within your soul?  I can honestly say that I have been for the past few days.  Maybe it’s a bit of maturity, maybe it’s the fact that I’ve been dwelling on this topic or maybe it is simply Christ at work…I suspect that it is mostly the latter.  In the past 72 hours I have had a minor fender bender (I tapped our older daughter’s car pulling out of the garage), learned that family circumstances may be changing that will impact our family’s ease in gathering together, endured more severe symptoms of my health issues due to the holiday celebrations and have had a delay in preparing this post, yet my heart is at peace.  Though historically unusual for me, it is not entirely unexpected as I’ve been trying to be intentional in applying the things I learn while writing to my own life.   While it’s easy to glide over these names of Christ, are they not a summary of the source of our peace?

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The Joy of Christmas

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

Christmastime in our culture can be a tough time of year.  As Christians, we struggle with those who miss the whole point of the celebration because they do not believe in Christ.  Beyond that, there can be many hurdles to our joy shining through in this season.  The holiday schedule can get hectic which often leads to stress.  For those of us with illness, we often have enough trouble managing our heath without the additional burden of the social obligations that can exacerbate our symptoms in various ways.  For some, it will be the first Christmas without a loved one…or a few.  Others may have learned that this may be the last Christmas that they celebrate with a loved one as disease advances.  The opportunities for Satan to jump in and help us lose our joy are varied and endless, but if we are truly going to celebrate and maintain our joy, we need to intentionally focus on why we are celebrating…the incarnation of Christ.  This declaration of love bestowed upon us that brings us both joy and hope now and for eternity is the single source of our reason to celebrate.  We celebrate because He came, He rules and He is righteous.

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The Hope of Christmas

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Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but desire fulfilled is a tree of life.  Proverbs 13:12

Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but desire fulfilled is a tree of life.  Proverbs 13:12

Have you ever felt hopeless?  As the passage above says, hopelessness makes the heart sick and the world becomes a very dark place.  When I first became ill, that was very true in my life.  The pain I was enduring was relentless and creating a sense of fear and dread in our family.  The anxiety and uncertainty that it produced were intolerable.  If that wasn’t enough, I couldn’t reconcile God’s love with my illness.  I certainly didn’t see how any part of it could be working to my good, or to God’s glory.  Further, the Christians in my life at the time focused on my physical wellbeing, but never asked about my soul and did not attempt to present God’s spiritual truths that might apply.  As a result, I greatly desired my death.  Honestly, I desired it more for my wife and children than for myself.  As much as I wanted the pain and frustration to stop, I was most concerned about the damage that my illness and my inability to handle it were doing to them.  Daily I begged God to end my life.  In short, I was hopeless and my hopelessness was creating an adverse atmosphere in our home.  Thankfully it did not end there.  Eventually I learned to manage my illness somewhat, we became part of a church body that sought God’s will in all things and surrounded us with those who encouraged us in our faith, and the passage of time gave me the confidence that I could make peace with my circumstances.  However, the greatest change came when the word of God and the impact of Christians seeking to encourage me on a spiritual level invaded my illness and helped me to see that God had purpose in my pain and that it truly would work for my good and, more importantly, for the glory of God.  While I still struggle with the frustrations that come with living in a fallen world, it is the contrast between those dark days and the change that came with truth of scripture and the promises of God that keeps me going, points me to God and gives me hope.  One of the things that we celebrate as a part of the Christmas season is the hope that we have…hope in our God, hope in the salvation the Christ provides, and the hope of eternity.

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Thanksgiving Part 3

Thankful for Our Circumstances

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Rejoice always; pray without ceasing; in everything give thanks; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

Most people are fairly comfortable being thankful for God’s provisions and for the people in their lives.  While we may not feel that our circumstances are quite as perfect as those depicted in Norm Rockwell’s “Freedom from Want”, we can generally muster a fairly strong attitude of thankfulness.  Certainly when we feel that things are going relatively well, we are filled with thankfulness, but what about when the times are tough.  Thanksgiving of 1992 I woke up in the hospital after having an ERCP the previous day.  I was in pain and groggy; I barely remember celebrating the holiday, let alone being thankful. 

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