HOPE

 

I had a member of the choir email me a story last week that had been published in ESPN Magazine about a football game that took place in Grapevine, TX toward the end of last year.  The Gainesville State School had come to town to play.  The Gainesville team is made up of 11 players that are incarcerated in a maximum security correctional facility.  The Grapevine school is the Faith Christian School.  Their coach had decided to have fans of his school team root for the other school.  Can you imagine what that must have been like?  Parents of players on the Faith Christian School’s team cheering the players from a maximum security prison on to victory against their children.  I won’t give any other details because I would encourage you to look up the archives of this story online and read it for yourself.  However, I will tell you that the writer of this story from ESPN realized by the end of his story what many people today never realize.  That there is something that can be given that is free – HOPE.

 

One definition of HOPE that is given in Webster’s Dictionary is to cherish a desire with anticipation.  Imagine if you will what life would be like without HOPE.  Why would you get up in the morning? What would there be to anticipate?   What motivation would there be to be successful, to have a family, to live life on this planet we call Earth?  I can’t begin to grasp what life would be like without HOPE.  There are a lot of things that you and I might HOPE for in this life.  We each one have our own hopes and dreams, but what would our lives be like without any of those hopes and dreams?  Why go on living? 

 

The story that inspired this dialogue in me touched me in a way that I can’t begin to describe and sparked within me a new desire to give the gift of hope to the world around me.  Now I will be honest, I can’t truly give HOPE, but I can give direction and insight into how anyone can obtain it.  You see, HOPE is not going to be found in anything that this world has to offer.  You will never have enough money, enough stuff, enough health, enough joy to truly have HOPE.  The only way to truly have HOPE is to know the One who is our Ultimate Hope – the Lord Jesus Christ.  He came as a baby in a manger to bring HOPE to a world that is filled with hopelessness.  He came to give a reason to HOPE in the future.  The only way to have this HOPE is by coming into personal relationship with Jesus and this is done through acknowledging Him as Lord and Savior of the world.  He came to that manger to complete a mission that started before time began – redeeming mankind.  He came to give eternal life to anyone who chooses to believe in Him and accept Him into their lives.  It sounds too good to be true and too simplistic to be effective, but that is all it takes.  Romans 10:9 tells us that if we will confess with our mouth that “Jesus is Lord” and will believe in our heart that God raised him from the dead, we will be saved – that simple. 

 

Now, for those of us who are children of God and have received Christ into our hearts, we have a job to do.  We have the awesome privilege of living before the world around us with such HOPE that they want what we have.  We have the task of demonstrating that HOPE everywhere we go.  If we live it, the world will take note.

 

If you have never accepted this free gift of eternal life and HOPE, then my encouragement to you would be to receive it simply by asking for it.  It is as simple as praying to God and letting Him know that you believe in His Son, Jesus Christ, and He will meet you where you are and give you, not only new life, but HOPE.