From the Heart! - One of our deepest needs in life is to experience hope. When we lose our hope, life can become unbearable. That’s why, when you look back on your life, the happiest moments were fueled by hope. Your saddest moments were brought about by a loss of hope after something devastated your life and you couldn’t see a way forward. Human beings are hard-wired to hope. We are always placing our hope in something, expecting it to deliver something else that is important to us. That’s what hope is. But sadly, since the fall in the Garden, we all tend to look for hope in all the wrong places. We look for hope in temporary things that don’t have the power to deliver what we are truly longing for in our hearts. This means that we’re often left feeling disappointed, frustrated, and confused because we want certain things to give us hope, but they simply do not have the ability to do it!

Isaiah 59 is an amazing passage on hope. It’s written in one of the darkest moments in the history of the nation of Israel. They had just returned to Jerusalem from captivity in Babylon, only to discover that everything around them was a mess. There was a complete breakdown of societal structures: No city walls, no law and order, and no temple to worship in. Into that darkness, God makes an amazing promise of hope: Despite what you see around you right now, I am going to bring the Savior of the world from your midst. He will redeem you as my people and bring a message of hope to a world that desperately needs it!

In His Service,

Pastor Steve