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A New Year: Renewed Hope
By admin | January 8, 2009
The New Year is beginning. We get to start over with the calendar. This is also a good time for Christians to reignite their hope.
George Sweeting tells an early story of John Wesley that speaks of hope:
While on a three-month journey at sea, a young English preacher encountered two severe storms that left the main mast of the ship shattered. Then on January 25, 1735, a terrifying third storm caused him to fear for his life, so much so that he wrote, “. . . it was as if the great deep had already swallowed us up.” Yet, on the same ship, during the same storm, a group of German Christians appeared completely peaceful, calmly quoting the Psalms. According to young John Wesley, the lack of fear among these Christians unsettled him more than the storm itself. How could they be calm when their ship was on the brink of disaster? How could they be at peace when their very lives were at risk? What was the difference between their faith and his? What secret about God did they have that he did not?
No ship survives severe storms at sea—and no person survives severe storms in life—without the use of anchors. When you are being battered and bruised by a ferocious storm, you will be stable and secure as long as you have an anchored life. And when you have an anchored life, you will successfully weather the storms of life. The Germans John Wesley encountered had such an anchor . . . they placed their hope in Jesus. And such hope turned their fear into faith. Therefore, what the anchor is to the ship, hope is to the soul. Both ships and souls are kept safe by the anchor—by a firm, secure anchor that holds even against the greatest adversities. And every Christian has been given such an anchor in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ.
The Bible tells us we can have hope, “…we who have fled to take hold of the hope offered to us may be greatly encouraged. We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure…” (Hebrews 6:18-19).
As we go into 2009 let’s put our hope in God. He does have everything under control. An old hymn can help you remember this great hope:
My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness;
I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly lean on Jesus’ name.
When darkness veils His lovely face, I rest on His unchanging grace;
In every high and stormy gale my anchor holds within the veil.
His oath, His covenant, His blood, support me in the whelming flood;
When all around my soul gives way, He then is all my hope and stay.
Refrain:
On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand;
All other ground is sinking sand,
All other ground is sinking sand.
My prayer for you this year is found in Romans 15:13:
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Aldersgate…a place of grace, forgiveness and hope. May it continue to be so in 2009!
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