May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. Romans 15:13
Children get all excited at the coming of the season, and often adults may go to the extreme to provide the wrong message about a particular holiday. We throw parties, trim the tree, max out the credit card, wrap, ship, and/or take a trip. Only afterwards to suffer buyer’s remorse…
Christ’s coming into this world from the time of his announcement to HIS birth offered hope to this world. So, how can we get caught into the season centered around one month and miss the “Coming One of Hope”?
Faith is the inseparable companion of spawn hope.
Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1).
Notice the parallel between “things hoped for” and “things not seen.” The plus side of that hope, is through faith in knowing HE is here and is always available to you no matter what you see, hear, feel or think. The Hope of the “Coming One” is higher than any circumstance.
“Hope is not so much of what you’d expect but it is you desire or what you would like to see to come to past.
“Love… hopes all things…but now abide faith, hope, and love; but the greatest of these is love” (1 Corinthians 13:7,13).
So, love is the tie that binds both hope and faith together…
In a sense of medium exchange, faith is what we give to God, and hope is what He gives to us, then we have a true vertical relationship. With that in place, we can love. True love is built on hope, which is built on faith.
For hope to exist, there has to be a condition to hope. In a perfect world you wouldn’t have any need to hope. Think about it, if everything is going well in your life and/or you have everything that you want, why would you have a need to hope? Hope only comes when there is despair.
According to Romans 15:13, “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”
Hope is an inseparable companion to Faith and Love is the tie that binds the two. So, in this season keep your hope in the “Coming One”!
God Bless – A Note From The Counselor’s Corner,
Dalton Kornegay, PhD
