“Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in
believing, that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit”—Romans 15:13
In Luke 4:40, we are given a wonderful example of hope and
healing, “When the sun was setting, all
those who had any that were sick with various diseases brought them to Him; and
He laid His hands on every one of them and healed them.” Here, we are given an image that we can
relate to.
It was the end of a busy day. People were coming to Jesus from the labors
of their day with such hope. Hope
because they had heard that Jesus was doing miracles. If you will come to Jesus He will heal
you. In the natural they had no hope, no
money, and no resources and yet they came to Jesus.
We can assume that Jesus and His followers had had a busy
day. Jesus might have been weary from
His day, and yet he had time for every hurting person. He was not too busy or too tired, He did not
ignore those who came late; He laid hands on every one of them and healed
them.
I encourage you to hold to the faith in this Christ who cares
about people. “The LORD is my portion,” says my soul, “Therefore I hope in Him!” (Lamentations 3:24).
Continually, religious attitudes are coming to you that say God does not have time for you or that you
missed His will. You are not pleasing to
Him in some way you are not perfect enough. Christ’s life never demonstrated these
attitudes. He loves you. He has time for you. If you will embrace these true attitudes of
Christ as absolute truth about Him it will influence how you treat other
people. You will have time for
them. You will care about them. They too will begin to hope in this Christ who has time for them and cares for them, as He
did you, “Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out
in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us” (Romans 5:5). People need the hope that you have.
Prayer—Father I thank
You for the hope that You have given to me in Jesus Christ. Today I commit not to be in despair, but to
hope in You for all that I have need of, and with Your help I will share Your
love and hope with others, in Jesus Name. Amen.
