Photo Above: (Yangshuo Moon Hill) Guilin, China. Photographer: Henrik Hansson Globaljuggler.net
God Our Hope
In Jewish psychologist Dr. Victor Frankl’s book “Man’s search for meaning” he talks about his time spent in the Nazi concentration camps. He noticed over time that fellow prisoners who lost all hope for life would die very shortly after. He understood that hope is what sustained the lives of many in the most extreme and excruciating conditions. So when Dr. Frankl noticed that a fellow prisoner was losing all hope, he would go to them and whisper hope in their ears (because it was outlawed to stop others from committing suicide in the concentration camps).
As Christians we also know the importance of hope. Hope is mentioned at least 164 times in the Bible. Faith, hope, and Love. The Apostle Paul stated these as being critical to the Christian faith in his letter to the Corinthians. Paul knew the only offer of true hope resides in the person and work of Jesus Christ.
In Christ we find not the hope of a safe, happy, and better life in any worldly sense. Instead we find something much better, we find a God who loves, forgives, and desires us. We find a God who wants His Holy Spirit to live in us, that we may become partakers of His divine nature. We find a God who delights to use the downtrodden, the sick, the poor, and the sinners of this world to put to shame the wise. We see a God who is willing to use anybody to spread the gospel. We find a God who waits at the door knocking and hoping for people to accept His offer of grace, relationship, and eternal life.
two minute devotional 