Christians Driven by Hope
By J. Grant Swank Jr. (06/09/08)
No matter the circumstances in one’s life or society, the Christian is driven by hope.
“Faith, hope, love.” That is the trilogy the apostle Paul wrote in his letter to the Corinthian church.
Hope is the candle always lit in the believer’s heart. It is because of Christ the Victor. He overcame death and the grave. He said, “In the world you will have tribulation but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.”
Christ overcomes the world.
No matter America’s political situation. No matter the world angst. God is still on His throne. God is not absent from the doings of His planet. It is a spiritually fallen sphere where there are hurricanes, floods and fires. There is injustice and tragedy—in believers’ lives and non-believers’ lives.
However, in the Christian’s life, God has promised to make all things work together for good. In any one moment, the Christian may not be able to decipher that good; but eventually the believer can look back to see God’s good pattern overcoming the angst.
When working as a substance abuse counselor in our county jail, I met an inmate walking toward his assignment in the laundry. He was carrying a Bible.
“What are you carrying that book for?” I asked.
He answered softly, “It helps me.”
I asked him that for three days in a row. Then on the fourth day, I asked him that question one last time. After he answered “It helps me” I said: “I have a secret.”
“What is it?”
“I am one of you. I am a believer like you.”
With that he informed me that he had committed a heinous crime, facing twenty years in prison.
“But the more I read this Book, the more the outside world recedes so that now I don’t care if they charge me with twenty years in prison.”
“That’s the power of that Book,” I reminded him.
In other words, he had come upon the believer’s hope. It overrides present difficulties. It displaces fear. It calms the soul.
The young inmate told me that the first day he was put in jail, he fell to his knees. “I cried out, ‘If there is a God, you’ve got to help me for my life is over.’ Then I opened my eyes to find this Bible in the corner of my cell. I’ve read it through several times.”
I will never forget that August day in 1999 when having that conversation with that new believer. Miraculously, he was released the next February 2000 and is now serving Christ, married to a Christian and working for the Lord as a recent college graduate with a straight A grade average.
There are those who say our America is lost, it’s on the skids, there are foreboding days ahead. That could be fact. Time will tell.
But though that may be reality on the one hand, on the other hand, God is aware of His righteous remnant. He will bless them as He promised in His Word. He will have the final say regarding the United States that was grounded originally on the Judeo-Christian foundation.
Keep the hope, Christian. Keep the hope candle burning in your own soul.
God is still on His throne, no matter the threats of the enemy. God is still on His throne and has the last word.
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