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“And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call His name Jesus.  He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High.  And the Lord will give to Him the throne of His father David, and He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom there will be no end.”  (Luke 1:31-33, ESV)

 The time is upon us where if we haven’t already, we start decorating for Christmas.  In my counseling office we put up an artificial tree. I started looking several weeks ago for ornaments for the office tree.  I wanted to put up word ornaments – the things that most people are seeking to find when they come to counseling.  You know, words such as, love, joy, peace, faith and hope.  I was able to find all the word ornaments, except hope. The name of my practice has the word hope in it.  So having hope on the office tree was important to me. I went shopping through various stores even searched online for hope. Unfortunately, everyone seemed to be out of stock – no hope available.

It made me ponder, how often do we go to the stores looking to purchase hope.  Disguised as the perfect gift for someone we love, or even for ourselves?  Trusting that somehow this gift will fill the hole of what’s missing or fix the problem.

God gave us the best gift of hope over 2000 years ago.  When He sent His Son Jesus to leave heaven and come to earth.  Jesus was the long-awaited Messiah (2 Samuel 7:12-16), the Savior of all mankind.  The birth of that little baby represented hope for women, men, poor, outcasts and people suffering.

This world was cruel back then and it’s cruel today. Sometimes evil does get the upper hand and good people suffer on this earth. But this earth is not the destination for a follower of Christ.  One day this earth will not exist anymore, it will burn away.  God will create a new earth and those of us who are in Heaven will witness Heaven coming down to the new earth.  That’s where we will live and reign with Jesus on the new earth.  From that point on, there will be no more death or pain – no one will ever be done wrong again.  Jesus will make everything right – that is our Hope.

If you’re in need of hope today you won’t find it in a store, you won’t find it in relationships with other people, or even in your job – the only place you will find lasting hope is through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

“Father thank You for the gift of salvation through Your Son Jesus and the eternal hope that I have – this life is painful but one day You will right all the wrongs ever done.”

For His Glory

Laura Holmes (www.ephraimministries.org)
TRBC Women’s Life