The Word of Hope

Life has taken us down a strange path recently. Maybe it would be more accurate to suggest a roller coaster rather than a path, for we find ourselves being driven on a crazy, hectic rail of emotions, fears, anxieties, and anger all rolled into one big bundle of nerves. The financial world's upheaval, the employment and unemployment tug-of-war, and the political bantering (that seems anything but playful) occupies much of our attention these days. Unless you are hiding under your bedsheets, we all seem to be inundated with a host of crises - one right after the other, and sometimes on top of one another.
Where does one turn when it comes to security? Where does one turn when it comes to stability? Where does one turn when the world seems to be spinning out of control? Actually one doesn't turn very far. One merely has to look God-ward.
Without trying to seem overly optimistic, there is one assurance that we can all count on: God is still God. And in this assurance are the following assurances: 1. that God loves us totally and unconditionally; 2. that God's grace sustains us when we seem to be out of control; and 3. that there is absolutely nothing that we can do to mess up #1 and #2.
The Psalmist wrote: "I lift up my eyes to the hills - from where does my help come? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth" (Ps. 121). And the Apostle Paul wrote, "Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?...No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life,, nor angel, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Rom. 8:35, 38-39).
If we have all this in our favor, we can be assured that our hope is not in stock markets, or bailout plans, or mortgage negotiations - as important as these things are. No, our hope is in God, who has given us Jesus Christ to be our Lord and Savior, and through the Holy Spirit, we can be assured that we are never left alone to face the world.
I pray that you will find comfort in the one has saved you - Christ Jesus - and that the power of the Holy Spirit will bless you and keep you. See you in Church!

Grace and peace,
Brad