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Week 20 - Hope

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Through Nancy Guthrie's teachings, including this week's reading, I have been really searching through Christian hope and what it means to have it.  This hope has been after me, and I am slowly getting it.  God is breaking me to see his truth so that I can rest in Him as he completes his perfect will for my life.  "Hope: the expectation of a favorable future under God's direction".  Because of how daily we use the word "hope", this past year has been to apply the true meaning of hope to my life.  When all of what I had "hoped" for on this earth begins to fade from my reach, I am now convicted that my "true hopes and dreams can only be fulfilled in God" (pg. 154).  I will not watch Magdalena grow up, but my God has not forsaken me, and this life is but a second to the time that I will have in eternity with both of them.  My hope is secure in Jesus life, death, and resurrection.  "Biblical hope is based on what God has said, not on what we can see."  With my human eyes I can not see the big picture.  I can only trust God, and honestly, I am only able to do this because I constantly beg of his mercies to allow me to trust him more deeply. It is a daily giving myself to him.
Abraham, Sarah, Noah, and Abel did not see what God's plan was for them, but they continually trusted.  I am most amazed at Abel because I want to cling to my children.  So often I want to place my hope in the temporary things of this world when God's blessings are most obvious when we let go and find our hope in Him. 

"When you choose to hold on to the hope of salvation - Jesus himself - it is as if you drive a stake into the solid ground of God's Word and hold on for dear life.  Then, when the wind of adversity or doubt or persecution comes your way, you can hold steady without falling." (pg. 155)

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  1. A couple of years back, Denise Richardson spoke at our ladies retreat. She spoke about "anchoring up", how we should be anchored in Heaven. This was a key verse: Hebrews 6:19 "This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, a hope both sure and steadfast and one which enters within the veil..." She said that here, hope actually means "confident assurance", not the sense of "wishing" we often feel when we hope our team wins. I love knowing that my hope is in the Lord, and it is a sure thing, an anchor for my soul...

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