Moving Towards Hope

Moving Towards Hope
by: Pastor David Wood

Romans 5:2-5 NIV
And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.
Our grandson, Andrew, stayed with us the other night. He gets up super early for work and I wanted to have coffee ready for him to take with him when he left for work.

When he got to our house, I had just finished grinding the beans for 12 cups of beautiful coffee. I put the freshly ground coffee in a fresh filter and set the brew delay for 4:30am.
About 5am, the next morning, I heard him go out the door and off to work. As I was drifting back off to sleep, my annoying brain said, “I don’t remember you putting water in the coffee pot.” I thought to myself as I immediately woke up, “Me either!”

I jumped out of bed and I went into the kitchen to check. Though my brain had been late in telling me, it was absolutely right, I had not put any water in the coffee pot. Even though I had the very best intentions, all I had served poor Andrew was coffee smelling air. And so it goes in life.

Our hope in Jesus is a process and sometimes we mess that up. Sometimes our lives don’t look like our hope is in Jesus. Sometimes our fruits do not look like it came from the Spirit but more from our sinful nature. Sometimes our suffering does not produce perseverance but rather, whining and complaining. Sometimes our perseverance does not produce character but rather, something that looks more like compromise. Sometimes our character does not produce hope but more like something that more resembles hopelessness, even though Jesus was, is and will always be, our Hope. We just put our hope and trust in something else instead along the way. Sometimes we forget that the Holy Spirit of God has been given to us. Poured right into our hearts by God.

Just like my intentions with Andrew were good and still got messed up, we can have the best of intentions in our walk and miss something along the way, stepping off the path we were on. Sometimes instead of us being a great example of Jesus, we end up just serving up a bunch of hot air. So what can we do?

We are all going to mess up. We mess up, we learn, we grow. That is also a process. We must never give up on working on our growth because God never will. We have an enemy that comes to steal, kill and destroy. Don’t ever let him win! Know his goals.

If you make a mistake, stop, learn, apply and start again. One thing is for sure, God will finish what He has started. He is the author AND finisher of your faith. Count on it!!!

Carry On,
David Wood - WBC Worship Pastor

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