Love always hope

Women hope they don't gain weight, and men hope they make a lot of money. Terminally ill patients hope they beat the sickness. Prisoners hope they'll released early, and everyone else hopes they won't.

Although most of these things are possible, they are not probable. However, our view of hope chooses to make them at least appear probable for the moment. It gives us what we need to get us through the day. If it doesn't happen, that's okay; at least we didn't give up hope.

The problem with this definition of hope is that it has been reduced to wishing for something. There's no certainty or guarantee. It's just a dream of what could possibly take place. There isn't anything wrong with wishing and dreaming, but when it takes the place of real hope, we are making a grave mistake. The inevitable end of that mind-set is hopelessness.

Hope must always be inserted into truth. If it is placed in anything other than truth, it becomes a destructive force that can potentially lead us into a world of emptiness and anguish. When hope is placed in truth, it tows us through life's trials. Hope was created for truth, nothing but truth.

Imagine what happens when God's children believe they might not get to go to heaven if they make a mistake. Love could never threaten to tear those tickets up. God knows you need those tickets. The power of you knowing that those tickets are yours and no one can take them from you, it the same power you need to get through life. Heaven is guaranteed to you because you need that guarantee. If you are a Christian and you don't believe you are secure in Christ, you have no hope. All you have is a wish and a dream. Until you know for sure that you belong to God and you are going to be with Him when you die, you will remain in a state of constant hopelessness.

The reason God has hope in you isn't because you've earned it. God knows the trust about you. And hope is always placed in truth. God's hope for you has to do with the truth that He has seen with His own eyes. He hopes in you because of His certainty of it.

True hope is: seeing the full truth and hoping in the assurance that truth will prevail in the end.

"extracts from Misunderstood God by Darin Hufford"

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Just enough strength for each new day.