The Message of Hope

THE REV. GARY L MOORE
GUEST COLUMNIST

The word HOPE is used so often today in many diverse and often diluted ways.

For many it’s a wish, to others a desire, for some it maybe an expectation or even an assurance yet without some kind of hope we just merely exist.

What kind of hope do you have? Is it simply a wish, a fleeting thought that will never come true? Maybe a desire, something you want but it doesn’t seem quite within reach. Many of you have an expectation, a hope that if you work hard enough and long enough your dream may one day come true.

What is your hope in? Is it your family, your talents, your job, your finances, your status, your appearance, your church, your faith, your karma, or just plain luck?
During the depression men of all walks of life put their hope in the Stock Market, only to see their grand schemes and empires crumble and their life made empty and worthless. Many men jumped to their death, rather than face life without a hope in their life.
So many people think there is no hope in the world. No hope in this present time. They give up on their hope and just exist from day-to-day.

Too many times we in the church world talk about our future and eternal hope. How someday, we will live blissfully with Jesus in heaven. Our burdens and cares gone forever.
And yet we miss out on this great Message of Hope. The hope God has for us today. More than just a message of salvation, it’s a message of life, of hope for here and now.

God's plan was never for us to just get by in life and hope for an eternal reward afterward. There is more, much more - quite simply there is HOPE for today. More than a wish, more than a desire, more than any expectation, there is an ASSURANCE!
Hebrews 6:19 says this “We have this hope, a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul …” We can have a true hope, a sure HOPE. A hope that anchors us to the very one who brings us hope.

Many times I wonder how lives would be impacted, how events would have changed if only those people involved would have had a sure hope.

Would that mother have taken the life of her baby and her own, if she would have had a real hope? Would those teenagers have taken lives if their own lives were filled with a true hope? Would the addict have plunged into their addictions if the emptiness they tried to numb was filled with a hope like no other.

Not a hope in a program, a pastor or even a church, but a hope in a real and true living God. A God who sent his son to love us. A son who died on a cross to free us, to give us a hope when all seemed lost. When we were lost. A never-ending supply of hope, ready for all of us at any time.

Whether you are churched, unchurched, redeemed or unredeemed; we all need hope. And I know the perfect source for hope, his name is Jesus.

The Rev. Gary Moore is the Senior Pastor of sure HOPE Christian Assembly in Middletown, Ohio. Visit us on the web @ www.surehope.org