Day 4 of 31 Days of Hope: Hope for the Journey

From YouVersion app

This December, OMF Literature would like to share with you 31 excerpts from 31 devotionals. In an age where people are desperate to cling to something or someone, we offer a message of encouragement, inspiration, and love from the One who is the eternal source of Hope.

“We are terrible hopers in this day and age,” says Francis Chan. We expect the worst because we’ve been let down too much. If something even halfway decent happens in a day we consider it a good day.” The Bible says gthat “hope deferred makes the heart sick” (Proverbs 13:12). Perhaps you feel that there isn’t much hope in your journey through this life.

The truth is, the here and now, our bank accounts, our accomplishments, anything that we can touch, see, and feel, even the people around us that we love most, were never meant to give us hope. They were never designed to lead to what the Bible calls the “hope that does not disappoint” (Romans 5:5 NASB). Paul laid it out straight for us: “Through him, we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God” (Romans 5:2). The problem is, Chan says, “Hope in the glory of God doesn’t anchor our souls.”

Hope in God’s glory won’t do us any good if God’s glory is little more than a nice-sounding religious sentiment. The glory of God is in the Gospel: God’s story of Jesus’ death for us, His resurrection and our redemption and restoration back into right relationship with Him. “When the story is told and the gospel is preached, what shines out from it, Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4:4, is the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.”

Is your heart sick? Has your journey been marked by potholes of disappointment? Maybe we’ve all lost sight of His glroy because we’ve lost sight of our need for the Gospel. Maybe we’ve lost sight of His glory because listening to Him and reading His love story has been relegated to the leftover time in our lives.

REFLECTION

What gives you hope?

CONVERSATION WITH GOD

Father, please open the eyes of my heart, help me get my eyes off of myself, off of the here and now, and see the glory of the Gospel!

This is an excerpt by Bonnie Sala from Thrive: Journey Into Grace by Darlene Sala, Bonnie Sala, and Luisa Collopy. The devotional is available at OMF Lit Bookshops, our online store shop.omflit.com, PCBS and other bookshops nationwide for only P350.

Join Darlene, Bonnie, and Luisa as they take you through their own unique journeys through life. In this book, you will meet three women who are learning what it truly means to walk with God. They do not claim to be contemporary Proverbs 31 women who are perfect in every way. Instead, they are real women who are honest enough to tell you about their good and bad days.Darlene says, “Our prayer is that these readings, these snippets of truth we’ve stumbled upon in our quiet moments with Him, will encourage you to press into Him daily as you travel your own journey into grace.”

There are many devotionals for women but what makes this different is that three women are talking to readers. These women write from their own unique perspectives, talking about their relatable experiences and providing practical and godly wisdom from God’s Word.