Cross Way Publications Monthly News
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Poem of the Month
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Live With Hope
By: Durene Ngo
In our childhood, we couldn't understand,
What was exactly the meaning of hope,
Why everyone of us would need hope,
And where our hope should stand.
In our adulthood, we've gradually understood,
Hope is a very important concept.
It must exist to make life complete,
And it must come from the Above!
Without hope, life would be shattered,
But with hope the world becomes much brighter!
Forever, in each and every day of our lives,
Hope in God will fill us with sunshine!
Friends, let's live with the fullest hope,
The precious hope from God that never stops.
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Scripture of the Month
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Psalm 42:11 (NKJV)
11 Why are you cast down, O my soul?
And why are you disquieted within me?
Hope in God;
For I shall yet praise Him,
The help of my countenance and my God.
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Quote of the Month
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"The education of our faith is not complete if we have not learned that there is a providence of loss, a ministry of failing and of fading things, a gift of emptiness. ... In some way or other we will have to learn the difference between trusting in the gift and trusting in the Giver. The gift may be good for a while, but the Giver is the eternal love. ... And whenever in your life and mine some spring of earthly and outward resource has dried up, it has been that we might learn that our hope and help are in God who made heaven and earth."
From F. B. Meyer
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Notes From Cross Way
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1. A warm thank you to Sarah Berthelson, Gabriele Embry, Sharon Howell, and Laurie Jenkins for their continued financial support to this ministry. Also, a special thank you to Wendell Brown, who is the newest member of Our Macedonian Faithful. We are truly blessed by your generosity.
2. We are still in the process of converting the website into a memorial to Jerry Hoffman. I have to teach myself how to update his programming language, which is a challenge made even more challenging by the ever constant interruptions of babies.
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This Month's Devotional Thought
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Christians are not immune to the unending pressures of this world; we often encounter many disappointments, depression, and at times a degree of hopelessness. When we are disquieted from within it soon becomes evident from without. Our countenance drops and sad lines invade our faces to expose our despair. But the God of all hope is the help of our countenance. How many times do fears arise - does confusion and anxiety grip us? When we find no immediate help in uncertain circumstances it seems that our very soul is cast down, even as the psalmist wrote in Psalm 42:11. In the middle of this verse as if in the middle of his trouble he reminds himself to "Hope in God."
To hope in God is to trust in God. In Colossians 1:5, the apostle Paul wrote that hope is the spring or catalyst of faith, so much so that in Colossians 1:23 Paul implies that faith is dependent upon hope so if hope is diminished faith falters! By definition, you cannot have faith without hope because “faith is the substance of things hoped for”, (Hebrew 11:1). Faith and hope are inseparable partners. When we are trusting God, when we have confidence in His promises, we have hope. True Christian hope is a confident expectation and not an uncertain wish. It is "being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ", (Philippians 1:6).
Our hope comes to us with much more than a life-time guarantee; it is a guarantee of eternity. We are persuaded of all that God promises for our stay on earth and for our abode in heaven. Furthermore we are eager to reap all of the benefits hope presents to us, so that heaven itself becomes an "earnest expectation", (Philippians 1:20-24). Our eyes are lifted upward, "looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ." (Titus 2:13).
Our hope in God is through Christ and Christ in us is our hope of glory, (Colossians 1:27). That glory is not so much a place as it is a condition. The glory we hope for, in Christ, is the glory that will one day be revealed in us, (Romans 8:18); when this mortal body will put on immortality.
Hope in God is more than a feel-good mechanism. We have so much to gain if we hope in God. One of the present benefits to our hope is that it fosters a pure and holy lifestyle, (I John 3:2-3). Absolute purity is what we will be when we see Christ, but a progressive purity is what our hope for the absolute now demands, produces, and encourages. Those who anticipate a changed body, (I Corinthians 15:51), must first be spiritually quickened and experience a dramatic change in their soul, (II Corinthians 5:17). This spiritual awakening is the surety and proof of the hope of a complete change of our being when we will one day "awake in His likeness", (Psalm 17:15). Being made a new person in Christ now reinforces everything that hope offers later. If God can turn our life around here and now, we can only imagine what the ultimate change will be like. Have you put your trust in Christ and experienced that life-changing new birth? This is the only avenue for hope - the only assurance for eternity.
For those of us who have put our trust in the person and work of Christ, we have been given this precious gift of hope that will endure through any and all of life's circumstances. Sometimes we do not take advantage of it as we ought; worries and cares press in on us trying to choke the breath of hope out of us. But that ought not to be. If we look to the One who has saved us we cannot help but hope, and that hope strengthens us in the time of trouble.
I Thessalonians 1:3 refers to "patience of hope". We will often need to wait in hope, persevering through those tough days. It is the surety of our hope that gives us what it takes to keep on keeping on, and that surety is Christ Himself. The world offers us nothing like this hope in God; this consolation and assurance that comes through faith in Christ. In spite of all that is thrown at us and all that we are sometimes forced to endure, our hope in God is that one bulwark in which we find strength, encouragement, and faith.
Philip Hoffman
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