hope

Now we have this hope as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul.  Heb 6:19

The gifts that God has given us are beyond measure.  They come in all forms, shapes, capacities, sizes, and function.  One of the more delightful ways He blesses or strengthens us is through the inspired communication of His faithful and prayerful servants.  In today’s message, may we defer to one of God’s special messengers named A.W. Tozer (1897-1963).  Dr. Aiden Wilson Tozer’s vast insight into Biblical truth is clear evidence of his dedicated prayer life.  He often said, “As a man prayed, so is he.”  The following, taken from his devotional Renewed Day by Day – Volume 1, lights the God kind of hope in a simple, yet profound way.  Please read, enjoy, and gain:

“In the New Testament, the word “hope” becomes one of the great words that Christ gave us. It was a word often used before but it has received new and wonderful meaning because the Saviour took it into His mouth. Hope is the music, the drift and direction of the whole Bible. It sets the heartbeat and atmosphere of the Bible, meaning as it does desirable expectation and pleasurable anticipation!

Human hopes will fail and throw us down. But the Christian’s hope is alive. The old English word “lively” meant what the word “living” means now; the word coming from God Himself for it is the strongest word in the Bible for life. It is the word used of God Himself when it says He is the Living God. So it is that God takes a Christian’s hope and touches it with Himself and imparts His own “livingness” to the hope of the believer.

The true Christian hope is a valid hope! We have been born of God. There has been a new creation. No emptiness there, no vanity, no dreams that can’t come true.

We have no great place of beauty in this world—Taj Mahal, Buckingham Palace or the White House—that can compare with the glory that belongs to the true child of God who has known the major miracle, who has been changed by an inward operation of supernatural grace unto an inheritance, a living hope!

Your expectation should rise and you should challenge God, and begin to dream high dreams of faith and spiritual anticipation. Remember, you cannot out-hope the living God!”

Family and friends, may the Holy Spirit not only assist us in discovering all our unique gifts, but bless us this week with a divine shot of His hope into our personal atmosphere.

Prov 13:12; Rom 15:13; Jer 29:11