The Need to Share Our Blessed Hope in Christ

One of the few things that I enjoy during a 12 hour flight from LA to here is that I can FINALLY catch up on some of the movies that I don’t have time to watch while I’m in the States. And flying an airline that provides you with your own movie screen is great because you can pick and choose those movies.

During this last flight, I watched an independent film entitled “HENRY POOLE is HERE.” According to the movie’s synopsis, this is a comedic drama about a disillusioned man who goes hiding in placid suburbia only to discover he cannot escape the forces of hope. Returning to the middle class neighborhood where he grew up, Henry chooses to live in indulgent isolation. Real life, however, refuses to cooperate with his plans. Nosy neighbors interrupt him with curious visits and prying questions. Then the situation escalates as a stain on Henry's stucco wall is seen to have miraculous powers. His last-ditch hideout becomes a shrine; his backyard turns into an arena for passionate debate about faith and destiny. Seeking anonymous oblivion, cynical Henry Poole instead finds himself right at the center of the human comedy. This modern-day fable investigates the unexpected wonders of the everyday. A faithless man finds hope. A hopeless man finds love. Whether backyard miracles are real or triggered by hope and belief, their personal effects are permanent.

“Henry Poole is Here” was a sharp reminder to me that people around us are always looking for something to believe in. That’s the underlying premise and overarching emotion in the movie. You see that in the next door neighbor’s daughter who hadn’t spoken in over a year, but, after touching what looks like the face of Jesus on the stucco wall, her speech returns. Then there’s the grocery store clerk whose eyesight is restored after she also touches the wall.

The focus of the movie was all about hope but it made me sad to realize how desperately people want to BELIEVE in miracles that they will worship a stain on a stucco wall. Or they will travel to the town of Lourdes in southern France between March to October because they believe the

spring water from the grotto possesses healing properties. I have friends in CA who would travel regularly to Međugorje, a town located in western Herzegovina in Bosnia and Herzegovina. This town is best known due to reported apparitions of the Virgin Mary which appeared to six Herzegovinian Croats since 24 June 1981, and is now visited by pilgrims from around the entire world as a shrine. Being a predominantly Catholic country, the Philippines has more than its share of places where people will travel to be healed or to experience a miracle, like the shrine of Our Lady of Manaoag in Pangasinan.

And yet, here we are, believers in the Lord Jesus. We actually have the true message of hope and yet, are we doing our part to share this message to those around us who are looking for hope in all the wrong places, like in that stain on someone stucco wall that looks like the face of Christ or in Lourdes or in numerous shrines around the Philippines?

But, I also realize that before we can share this glorious message with anyone, we need to live lives that exemplify our hope. That's really our first obligation, to LIVE in hope.

“Hope” is found 131 times in the Bible in 121 verses. At its most basic definition, hope is the Christian's attitude toward the future. Hope is believing God for the future. Hope believes in what God has promised to do. In the Isidro Annotated New Testament, my Dad calls this “an upward and forward hope.” That’s a great way of looking at hope – upward and forward! My dad goes on to say, “As believers in Jesus Christ, we now have a new, positive and glorious future. This is towards the appearance in glory of the Lord Jesus Christ.” This hope that should characterize our lives is a living hope. My dad’s annotation of I Peter 1:3-12 goes on to say, “It is a hope that is certain to be fulfilled. And that hope is our ultimate glorification forever.”

But, why should we live in hope? The short answer is “Because it glorifies God.” Here’s how John MacArthur described it: when we truly trust God for the future, we are affirming by that trust that God is trustworthy and, as a result, God is glorified when we trust Him. As a believer who has received God's grace and who has seen that God was faithful in the past and is faithful in the present, we should live in the hope that God will be faithful in the future. By having this mindset, we give Him glory.

When we live lives that show to the world our hope in a God who keeps His promises to us, a covenant keeping God, this hope glorifies God and the result is that others around us who don’t know the Lord will want to know how they, too, can have this same hope.

So, here we are in a new year that God has graciously given to us – a new year that always starts out with great promise and bright hopes for a good future. Counting today, we have 336 more days to share our faith with people who are looking for meaning in their lives; people who need the Lord; people who need HOPE.

This is the awesome message of HOPE that we must share: that everyone can have “a new, positive and glorious future” by putting their faith and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. This is the best and the most loving thing that we can do for others – to share with them this blessed hope of Christ’s love and His promise that if they will put their trust and faith in Him, they, too, will be with Him forever in glory!

So, this is my challenge to myself and to all of us in 2009: may we all have the courage to share our “upward and forward hope” in Christ to everyone whom God brings into our lives. God bless you today and always!

http://www.cnsnews.com/public/Content/Article.aspx?rsrcid=42466

i believe that our new president was placed in his position by God to show Christians that we mustn't keep silent or sit on the sidelines doing nothing when our values are being attacked. and that's what i believe is happening now. check out this article: http://www.cnsnews.com/public/Content/Article.aspx?rsrcid=42466

'Change' We Never Imagined Friday, January 23, 2009By J. Matt Barber

Well, the high-sheen veneer and cult-of-personality euphoria surrounding America's new oratory endowed president looks to be dissolving rather quickly.

While millions had hoped for a political "messiah," it's fast becoming evident that, instead, we've stuck ourselves with an extreme leftist ideologue whose brand of "change we can believe in" is, in fact, "change we never imagined." (Sorry to burst the Barack bandwagon bubble, but I say it like I see it.)

The examples are piling up in terms of the radical pro-abortion polices he's planning to implement, the many-times-failed Marxist fiscal policies he's promised to test yet again, and – relative to his national security goals – the noxiously naive peacenik policies that have Mahmoud and Osama giggling themselves to sleep at night.

But on issues involving marriage, family and sexual morality, Obama's been even more brazen than some of his most ardent detractors could have expected.

Literally within minutes after he took the oath of office, the official White House webpage was updated – under the heading of "The Agenda: Civil Rights" – to detail his wholesale "support for the LGBT (homosexual activist) community."

His stated plans include the following: Defeating all state and federal constitutional efforts to defend the millennia-old definition of natural marriage from attacks by "gay marriage" activists.

Repealing the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) signed into law by Bill Clinton in 1996. This is the only line of defense keeping all 50 states from being forced to recognize so-called "same-sex marriages" from extremely liberal states like Massachusetts and Connecticut.

Repealing the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy despite the fact that the vast majority of military commanders and personnel say it will dangerously disrupt unit cohesion and troop morale.

Passing constitutionally dubious and discriminatory "hate crimes" legislation, granting homosexuals and cross-dressers exclusive rights – denied other Americans – based on sexual behaviors that are deviant, changeable, and widely regarded both here and around the world as immoral.

Passing the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), which would force business owners (religious and otherwise) to abandon traditional values relative to sexual morality under penalty of law.

Creating intentionally motherless and fatherless homes and sexually confusing untold thousands of children by expanding "gay adoption."

The gravity of this situation cannot be overstated. Right out of the chute, Obama has told the world that he is signing off, without exception, on every demand of the extremist homosexual and transsexual lobbies.

The radical homosexual agenda and religious/free-speech liberties cannot occupy the same space. It's a zero-sum game. When 1-2 percent of the population is granted exclusive rights based on the aforementioned deviant sexual proclivities and changeable sexual behaviors – to the detriment of everyone else – that's called tyranny of the minority.

Obama recently said, "I don't want to pit Red America against Blue America. I want to be President of the United States of America." Well, Mr. President, remember that whole “actions versus words” cliché? Your words ring hollow and your actions speak volumes. Every policy you promise to implement does exactly what you've denounced. Both your actions and your words very much pit Red America against Blue America.

For all the talk of "hope," "change," and "coming together," it's becoming abundantly clear that Barack Obama's administration will be the most leftist, divisive and discriminatory in recent memory. I suspect the immediate, stark and in-your-face revisions he's made to the White House website are a metaphor for what we can expect, in terms of broader policy, from his administration.

Obama said in an August 19, 2008 speech: "Change doesn't come from Washington. Change comes to Washington." Well, radical change in the form of Barack Obama has certainly come to Washington. Not just in terms of the man's skin color – which is historic and most encouraging – but in terms of his exceptionally extreme and demonstrably dangerous liberal policies (not so encouraging).

So it would seem that change does in fact "come from Washington." Change more radical than our nation has ever seen. Change our founders could have never imagined.

People of faith, conservatives, and those of you with traditional values: hold on to your hats – it's going to be a bumpy four years.

Victoria Wilson Darragh

my dear friend, victoria wilson darragh, is on her way to getting her 2nd book published. this one is about healing for the brokenhearted, about victoria's journey to healing from the devastation of her marriage.

i was privileged to write the foreword to the book. i can't share the complete version as it doesn't belong to me anymore -- it's victoria's -- but, i'll share an excerpt below and, hopefully, many will buy victoria's new book once it's published and my foreword will be there for all to read...

i showed the foreword to ashley on sunday. she thought i came on a bit strong regarding my own journey to healing, but I think she understood that it was important for people to know why i am endorsing victoria's book -- because victoria help me through the years of healing from my own broken marriage and this book gives valuable insight into how the Lord can help someone cope with a personal disaster of such magnitude.

expect this book to be available in the US by the end of february, the Lord willing!!

This is a book that will make you think: about what’s really important in life; about how God wants you to handle your present situation; and about the many ways God reveals Himself and His love and care for you in and through the trials you are currently facing.

This book reminds me that healing from personal tragedy IS possible. Further, it reminds me that God is still a God of miracles! That’s an awesome truth that shines through in every page of this wonderful book!