The Culture of Hope Founded on Faith
Tag Archives: Hope
Lessons From Behind the Shopping Cart
Shopping has recently become a challenge. Extensive empty shelves loom large in most stores, a phenomenon we in America are not used to. Driving around on less crowded streets is nice, but waiting in long lines to get into a lot of stores early enough in the day to find toilet paper still in stock violates our sense of efficient use of our time. But then, in the middle of social distancing and non-essential…..
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God’s Personal Involvement, Continued
My husband’s father lost two teenaged sisters during the flu pandemic of 1918, aunts that my husband never got to meet. Right now we are living through another pandemic and find ourselves in circumstances that can sometimes seem to be a worst case scenario. When bad things happen to us or to loved ones, we find ourselves wondering why.
Many times we hear Romans 8:28 recited as proof against discouragement: “And we know that for those…..
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The Anchor of Our Souls
As we move into 2020, it’s hard not to bemoan how fast the opportunities of 2019 have slipped past us. At the same time, our culture demonstrates an ever-increasing deterioration, leaving many hopeless and without anything solid to hold onto. Hebrews 6:17-20 gives me comfort because it reminds me of the firm foundation on which my life stands anchored in Christ:
“…God, willing more abundantly to show unto the heirs of promise the…..
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Trust and Obey
This week we found out that the two hotspots that showed up in Dan’s early September PET/CTscan were not cancerous. Between medical procedures and diagnostic tests related to events like this, there is always a lot of wait time. We’ve done this enough that we no longer engage in “what if” conversations and it seems these wait times have become just a normal part of our lives, as in “here we go again”. But through all of…..
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Forgiveness
After watching the movie “Overcomer” I found the Holy Spirit prompting me to consider my own unforgiving heart. It began with the drunk driver who caused the collision last summer and left me with a great deal of pain that continues to plague me. It included the Christian friend who revealed unrelenting hypocrisy in her blast at a perceived offense on my part. And it included the parents of a student I had in class one year who unfairly…..
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God’s Character Revealed in Salvation
In our modern-day Bibles, Psalm 139:1-24 appears to be one long poem written without separations except by single-sentence lines. But when you read it through from start to finish, it becomes clear that the psalm is David’s declaration of his relationship with God who is omniscient and omnipresent. It also envisages the relationship of the New Testament believer with God, listing the benefits of salvation according to God’s character:
A Personal Relationship with God –
…..
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The Habit of Trust
Have you ever wondered where the little prayer “now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I die before I wake, Lord I pray my soul to take” came from. I do not know the origin of it, but I can see in Scripture the motivation of it. Psalm 4:5-8 gives us a peek into the assurance of safety, even for the Old Testament saints.
“Offer the sacrifices…..
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“Casting all your care upon Him for He cares for you” simply does not happen when pride makes us think that we can do life in our own strength.
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He Knows My Name
While shopping recently I was delighted to watch two little girls whose mother was standing in line in front of me. The two girls couldn’t have been more than 3 ½ years old, twins and mirror images of each other. But how different their personalities are one from the other.
The one stood aggressively rattling a plastic bag of gummy candies hanging on the rack next to her until it fell off its hook. The mother…..