Hope

Hope from the Word

Does reading the Bible fill you with hope?

Verse of the Day

For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through the endurance taught in the Scriptures and the encouragement they provide we might have hope.

Romans 15:4

Today’s Devotional

Paul is referencing what we call the Old Testament.  I don’t know about you, but for me, some of the Old Testament is not an easy read.  I am currently reading through the Old Testament with some family members in a YouVersion reading plan.  I’ve never considered that these sacred texts are tools for endurance, encouragement and hope.

I would say that in our current era, the entire Bible would fit Paul’s description in this verse.  God does not change, so what He says in the Old Testament is true in the New Testament.  The entire narrative of the Bible is one of God’s love for us, His patience for our humanness, His desire for our hearts to be His.  I can’t quite fathom why, but God really does desire a relationship with us.  The Bible proves that point over and over again.

How does the Bible teach us?  It’s easy to see God’s instruction for us in the Ten Commandments.  In the New Testament, Jesus takes the teaching from the Commandments and digs deeper, trying to teach us the heart condition that the Commandments were attempting to create. Let me paraphrase Matthew 5:21-22: “You were taught not to kill anyone, but I’m telling you not to get angry or call names or wish bad things on anyone.”  Here the Bible is teaching us one way to love our fellow humans.  (Be nice.)  There are many such examples.  The Bible often teaches in stories.  If we ask for the Spirit’s guidance, we can learn from the stories of the Bible.  We can learn what to do and what not to do.  We can see where people went wrong, and we can see what they did right.  We can learn from their successes and mistakes.  More than anything, we can learn how flawed, scared and ill-equipped all of the people from the Bible are, yet God still chose them and used them to change the world.

How does the Bible teach endurance?  A remnant of Israelites remained faithful for 70 years of Babylonian captivity.  (Compare that to how we are all handling the craziness of this one year.)   Moses led a huge group of whiny people in circles in the desert for 40 years.  God’s people waited hundreds, if not thousands of years for a promised Messiah – and then couldn’t quite connect the dots when He arrived.  We need endurance to be God followers.  We need endurance to undergo spiritual growth and transformation because it is a SLOW process. The examples of people in the Bible show us the importance of not giving up.

How does this encourage us?  I find it very encouraging that all of the people God used in the Bible were flawed.  They got impatient.  They were scared.  They felt inadequate.  Yet still, God used them.  They made mistakes, and God’s plan still prevailed.  They got distracted by the way the world lived, and God called them back to Him. THAT, my friends, gives me hope.

We can have hope because God loves us enough to give us His Word.  We can have hope because God has given us examples of how to live.  We can choose the easy way or the hard way.  We get to choose.  We can have hope because the easy way leads to God.  We can have hope because if we choose the hard way, God always provides a way back to Him.

Journal Prompts

Answer only the questions that seem relevant to you today.

How does the Bible give you hope?

How can you look for endurance from the Bible? 

How do you find encouragement from the Bible? 

How can you read the Word from the perspective of it teaching you, showing you endurance and providing encouragement?