Hope

           Last week I shared the Scripture which were helpful to me when I began my walk with Christ.  These Scriptures not only gave me a good foundation for my faith in Christ, but there was also a new hope which was birthed in me.  Hope for overcoming, hope for living, hope for success, and hope for eternity.  I believe one of the most powerful messages of the Bible is the message of HOPE!

            One of the verses I shared last week was from Romans chapter eight.  That is one of the most hope filled chapters in the Bible!

Rom 8

1 Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

            Have you ever done something which you knew was wrong … but you did it anyway?  I was raised in church, my parents taught me to follow Jesus, and they provided me with good examples of what a Christian should be, but by the time I was fourteen I had decided to not do what they had taught me to do.

            Several years later, when I was willing to listen to Jesus’ insistent knocking on my hearts door, by that time I had racked up a pretty tall stack of guilt and condemnation!  Much like most of the world around me I felt like had to prove myself to God before He counted me worthy of blessings.  Learning what Romans chapter 8 said to me was one of the most freeing spiritual experiences that I had in my spiritual growth.

            I discovered that after we have repented of sin and invited Jesus to be our Lord, Jesus does not hold our past against us; He has chosen to not remember our failures and our sin!  There is no greater hope than this!  We have an opportunity for a new start!  Every day is a new day in Christ because our sins are washed away!  THAT IS HOPE!

            While I discovered Romans 8:1 early in my walk with Christ, it was several years before I the later part of the eighth chapter made an impact on my spiritual life:

Rom 8:31   What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us?

            I don’t know how long it takes for someone to understand this, but when we give our lives to Jesus, from that point on … God is for us!  He’s in our corner!  God’s goal for our lives in our success as a person, our success as a Christian, our success as a parent, our success in our gifts and abilities, and even our success in our business.  Now, please don’t interpret that to mean that God is going to make us all wealthy … but that doesn’t exclude that fact that God wants to bless our lives!

            God is for us, therefore, what Satan wants to do to destroy is cannot succeed as we are led by Christ and we obey what He tells us to do!  Satan uses many kinds of enemies to attack us, but as we rely on Christ we can overcome them all.  God is for us so who can be against us?

            Do you feel as if something or someone is against you?  Don’t take matters into your own hands, but learn what Jesus would have you do in that circumstance and then do it!  Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding!  When you do things God’s way … He fights our battles for us!  In addition:

Rom 8:32 He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?

            This is powerful.  When I first allowed this verse to impact my life I was so excited!  I was pasturing a church in Oklahoma and I preached a sermon based on this verse and I was so pumped I felt like I would burst.  I don’t believe the congregation understood what I was talking about, or it was such old news to them that it didn’t stir them it all.  But listen:

            God the Father gave the best gift He could give to us.  He gave His own Son as a sacrifice for our sins!  He watched His own Son writhe in agony and pain as He bore our sins on the cross and allowed it happen because He loved you and me.  That was the greatest gift God could give! 

            BUT LISTEN … what more does God have to give?  What else is available to us in Heaven?  What else do we need in life?  Everything else is LESS THAN Christ!  If God the Father would freely deliver up His own Son to death for us … how much more will He not also WITH HIM … FREELY give us all things?

            Do you need help with something?  Do you need a healing?  Do you need hope for tomorrow?  Do you need a wrong made right?  What do you need?  Call on God in the name of Jesus and He will freely give you those things which you need! 

            Isn’t that a great source of HOPE?

            To underscore just how much God is for us, and how much more He is willing to give to us along life’s journey, the Apostle Paul reminded us that God will always love us.

Rom 8:35-37

35 Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?

36 Just as it is written, "FOR YOUR SAKE WE ARE BEING PUT TO DEATH ALL DAY LONG; WE WERE CONSIDERED AS SHEEP TO BE SLAUGHTERED."

37 But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us.

38 For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 

39 nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

           The only part of that passage I had a hard time understanding was verse 36.  Paul had just said nothing could separate us from the love of Christ, then he quotes the Psalm which sounds quite discouraging:  “We considered sheep to be slaughtered.”

           It took a while see that Paul was writing as if someone was protesting the goodness of God:  “You say nothing will separate us from the love of God, but don’t you know we are being put to death all day long?”  And Paul answers in verse 37: BUT in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Christ! In several translations it reads:

Rom 8:37 KJV Nay, in all these things

Rom 8:37 RSV No, in all these things 

Rom 8:37 NIV No, in all these things

Rom 8:37 NLT No, despite all these things

           The English word “no” or “but” is taken from the Greek word alla: It is contrariwise to that!  And the root word allos: Its different than that!  God loves us so much that even when we face difficult times we have the ability to become more than conquers! 

            After reading and re-reading that passage I began to slowly understand the commitment God has made to me.  I knew I was called to be committed to following Jesus … but He is also emphatic about the amount of commitment He has toward you and me!  He is eternally committed to loving us!

            Look at the list of things which cannot separate from God’s love!

Tribulation                 Distress

Persecution              Famine

Nakedness                Peril

Sword                         Death

Life                              Angels

Principalities            Things present

Things to come        Powers

Heights                       Depths

    Any other created things

             I believe that includes everything in every area of life because God created it all! 

    God is for us,
                with Jesus He gave us everything we need,
                            and He loves us forever! 
                                    That is HOPE!