Psalm 71:14 (NIV) As for me, I will always have hope; I will praise you more and more.

When you receive Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, you become a child of God. It was the sacrifice that Jesus made on the Cross that paved the way for us to be reconciled to God. Now, the God that created the heavens and the earth and the one who opened up the Red Sea so that the people of God could walk through it on dry ground is our Heavenly Father. God’s might and power are unfathomable and His wisdom is beyond anything that we can imagine. With God being God and we being His children, it seems improbable that we could ever lose hope in any given situation...but we do.

That’s why we have the Word of God and why the Lord sent His Spirit to dwell in us to remind us of who we are and who our God is. Our natural hope is very shallow and blows away at the slightest wind of trouble. That’s because before our relationship with Jesus, we were living in control of our sinful nature. That nature is not only self-destructive, but leads to hopelessness as a result. Added to that is the fact that we live in a fallen world where a lot of bad and unfortunate things happen. If you turn on the news on any given day, it leans heavily in the negative with the average being seventeen bad news reports for every good one. The reason for this is that the majority of people in the world have rejected God, the only source of hope. People without God cannot have any real kind of hope. Their future is hopeless and their current circumstances depend on the state of affairs in their lives, on the economy and even on the government of the country and locality that they live in. That in itself makes for a hopeless situation.

But it is totally different for the children of God. We can never lose hope because no matter what our current circumstances, we have God as our Father and He loves us! He is bigger than any mountain that we may face, stronger than any enemy that may come against us and even sovereign over nature when it’s natural disasters that we are facing. But even beyond all of that, our future is secure and guaranteed to be brighter by trillions of kilowatts than anything we can imagine. God Himself will be our Light in heaven. It will be His resplendent glory that will light up the heavens and the earth! To top it all off, nothing is impossible for Him! With all of those facts, how can we ever lose hope? Our hope is never-ending because of our God! Are you facing difficulties? God is your hope! Are you sick in your body? God is your hope! Are you having trouble making ends meet? God is your hope! Is someone or something troubling you? God is your hope! Enjoy never-ending hope as the psalmist did in the verse above and do what he did instead of losing hope: praise Jesus more and more!

Pastor Joey Vazquez