A Hope for the Present Day
Proverbs 29: 18a, Romans 15: 4-6, Philippians 4:13
A Hope for the Present Day
Psychologist William Marston asked 3000 people, “What have you to live for?” He was shocked to discover that 94% were simply enduring the present while they waited for the future…waited for something to happen…waited for “next year”…waited for a “better time”…waited for “someone to die”…waited for tomorrow”
“Work without hope draws nectar in a sieve, and hope without an object cannot live”
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Proverbs 29: 18a KJV
“Where there is no vision, the people perish.”
Many people today are searching desperately for hope – a hope for the present day! Their lives are empty, fearful, and dying for lack of an appropriate “object” to satisfy that quest for hope. The problem is, however, that an object in and of itself will never suffice one’s present and eternal longing for hope and peace. Many people in and outside of the church look for an object: alcohol, drugs, success, money, fame, sex outside of the covenant of marriage, etc., but objects will never do!
Paul says in Romans 15: 4-6 “For whatever was written in earlier times was written for our instruction, that through perseverance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope. Now may the God who gives perseverance and encouragement grant you to be of the same mind with one another according to Christ Jesus; that with one accord you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Our hope is not in an object, but in a person! This hope is individual and continual among the church body. The human heart, as well as any local body of believers in Christ can never be “one” with the Father and “one” with one another without the hope of Jesus Christ positioned first place in thought, attitude, and action. Without Christ, there is no hope, and with Christ we have been given, through the enabling of the Holy Spirit, all the hope we need, one day at a time to lead the lost to Christ, and to be the light God has called Trinity UMC to be.
Paul said, I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.” (Philippians 4:13)
In Christ’s Hope and Glory!
Pastor Louie Mabrey