Keeping Hope Alive

There are times we feel we can?t continue the struggle against sin. When we are overwhelmed by our guilt and loose all sight of hope. In those most desperate of times, when our life seems unclear and our direction blurry - there is still hope, if we focus our attention on Jesus Christ.

As a child I used to love riding the small merry-go-round in our neighborhood park. But I hated the dizzying, unfocused feeling that I had after the ride. It was simply the worst feeling you could imagine, but after a few minutes, when it subsided, I would be right back on and spinning around again.

The same seems true in our spiritual lives. Most of our sins feel good for a time and all of them leave you with a depressing, unfocused feeling of failure. As you indulge in your sins, repeating them over and over again, the depressing guilt that accompanies sin will become a large part of your experience and soon you will view your life in this way ? as just a series of depressing failures.

But I do not have the strength to endure. I do not have a goal that encourages me to carry on.
Job 6:11 (New Living Translation)

This is one of Satan?s most effective weapons. He uses our guilt to cause an elusion that we are worse than we really are. He focuses our attention on the disruptive, erring aspects of our lives and soon we are convinced that we are no good and that our lives are hopeless. Mentally we feel drained, unable to sustain any defensive effort against the Devil?s constant assaults.

There is a way to change the direction of your life. If you want to make any change in your life, you must look in the direction you want to go in. If you keep looking at your sins (which is what the Devil wants you to do), that is where you will remain. If you look up to Jesus, He will be your new direction. When our focus is Christ, we will see things as they really are. He will open our eyes and our understanding. Our sins will be clearly revealed to us, but what will shines clearer, and become our new focus is that we have hope - hope through Jesus.

May our Lord Jesus Christ and God our Father, who loved us and in his special favor gave us everlasting comfort and good hope, comfort your hearts and give you strength in every good thing you do and say.
2 Thessalonians 2:16,17 (New Living Translation)

Remember, even though we fall for many temptations, we don?t really fall for everything the Devil offers. The elusion that he creates, convincing us that we are no good because of a particular sin is just that ? an elusion. Christ?s death on the cross and resurrection from the grave guarantees your hope.

For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope.
Romans 15:4