Hope is the Best Gift We Can Give & It Ties Us Together (Monday Morning Devotion - Week 6)
Many of our Native brothers and sisters live without the hope. This lack of hope covers them with a darkness that infiltrates their whole life. (You can read more about it here.)
But before we are able to share the hope we have in Jesus, we need to understand exactly what we have, what it means, and how we live because of it.
Join us in these 6 weeks after Easter with “What is Hope?”
Need to start at the beginning? Read Week 1 here.
Romans 15:4 & Romans 15:13 & Ephesians 4:1-6
What happens when you fill a cup with more water than it can hold? The water quickly rises to the top, overflows, and spills over the side.
The same thing that happens with water in a cup can happen to us when we allow God to fill our life with hope. When we are filled with hope, it overflows, and it spills over into the lives of the people around us.
Romans 15:4 tells us that “everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.”
God uses the Bible to speak hope in to our life so that we can share it with others. When the promises of God become our focus, hope rises to fill our heart and affect those around us. The very best gift we can give to others who may be lacking hope is to allow what we have been given to overflow into their lives and unites us as God’s people.
Families are united by blood relationships. Friends are often united by common interests and shared experiences. Coworkers are united by a common goal.
The Church is united by a shared hope. Ephesians 4 tells us “There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all” (Ephesians 4:4-6). We were called to one hope; the hope that is only found in trusting Jesus for the forgiveness of sin.
All over the world, Christians are united by faith in Jesus and the hope of His return. Jesus instructed His disciples to “go and make disciples of all nations…” (Matthew 28:19), and for the last 2,000 years, the hope that is found in Jesus has spread around the world. The world has been forever changed. Across the nations and throughout our tribal reservations, followers of Jesus gather under the banner of hope.
As we join in community and draw hope from one another, we grow stronger in Christ as individuals and as a global Church. Jesus is the hope for the world, and through the Church, He wants us to share that hope with everyone.
We were not created to do life alone. We find our purpose and our mission through the local church. Hope binds us all together as followers of Christ. Let’s be united today as one Church across the world, celebrating the hope that is only found in Jesus.
(These devotions are based on: “Hope is” created by NewSpring Church)