Alva Review-Courier -

My church and I have recently celebrated the Advent season in preparation for the Christmas celebration. If you don’t know what Advent is, that’s all right; that shouldn’t matter. To put it simply, it’s an ancient church tradition that believers engage in to prepare our hearts, minds and attitudes to properly appreciate and celebrate the birth of our Savior. We do that by focusing on a different word every Sunday. The first Sunday was the word “HOPE” and while the celebration is now behind us, our need for hope in this world is as prevalent as ever.

Hope is that element in our lives that gives us any reason to continue when the world and our circumstances cry out that we give up. It’s that light at the end of the tunnel that gives us incentive to travel through the dark moments of life. We see it spark people forward both in real life like when allied forces stormed the beaches of Normandy against overwhelming odds, as well as in our fictional entertainment such as when Frodo and Sam trudged towards Mount Doom with all the forces of Mordor standing in their way. Hope is not an exclusively Christian word by any means. Hope is used in all sorts of circumstances both in and out of the church, so you do not have to be a Christian to understand the value of hope. However, those of us who are in Christ, who are Children of God, share a special relationship with hope because not only do we enjoy the benefits of it, we also have an intimate relationship with the one who both created it and exemplifies it. Our Lord Jesus Christ.

Never in my life has it been more important to cling to our hope in Christ than it is right now. Both in and out of church, hope is something that is hard to come by today. We are living in a time and in a world that is not only gripped by fear and uncertainty, we have many in power, on all sides of the political aisle, that are propagating and insisting we live in fear and uncertainty. It’s a turbulent time and we are quickly learning that there is no hope, no comfort, no solace to be found in our world. That’s why I’m encouraged and, yes, filled with hope that we do not need to look to this world for encouragement. In fact, we are instructed in God’s Word to do the exact opposite. Look at Psalm 146:3-5:

Don’t put your confidence in powerful people;

there is no help for you there.

When they breathe their last, they return to the earth,

and all their plans die with them.

But joyful are those who have the God of Israel as their helper,

whose hope is in the Lord their God.

Are you finding it increasingly difficult to be hopeful in our current world with our current leaders, again, on all sides of the aisle? Well, you’re in luck, buddy; the Bible specifically tells us NOT to place confidence in any of those people or things. We’re reminded they are temporal and that if they’re making your life miserable right now, remember that they do not last forever and neither do their plans. However, what is the avenue, according to scripture, by which we do find hope and joy? One place: God. Not just any god, but THE God. God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Why can we hope in Him when hope fails in everything else? Because unlike world leaders, powerful men, regimes and nations, God and His Words are always right, always true and everlasting. They cannot and will not fail. As a matter of fact, Isaiah 40:8 says this:

The grass withers and the flowers fade,

but the word of our God stands forever.

So, in a world that not only gives us nothing to hope in, but actively sucks it out of you on a daily basis, I want to encourage those of you who are in Christ to continue to look only to Christ for your hope and joy. And for those who do not know Jesus as your savior, might I impress on you to turn your thoughts to Him today? There is only one thing unchanging, one thing eternal, one thing that lasts and that is the life-changing truth of Jesus Christ. And if you, like me, are ready for Christ to come back one last time and put an end to the sinful whirlwind of depravity that we live in, let me leave you with a comforting promise that we find in the book of Mark 13:24-27:

At that time, after the anguish of those days,

the sun will be darkened,

the moon will give no light,

the stars will fall from the sky,

and the powers in the heavens will be shaken.

Then everyone will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds with great power and glory.

And he will send out his angels to gather his chosen ones from all over the world—

from the farthest ends of the earth and heaven.