Jesus is our Hope

Thanksgiving is over and what's known as the "Holiday Season" is bearing down upon us. This can be a difficult time for people for a variety of reasons: the painful memories of a loved one who is no longer with us; a strained relationship with someone; struggling financially or physically; dreading holiday parties and gatherings, and the whole commercial shopping machine that comes with this time of year.

But there is a reason Christians celebrate Christmas. We celebrate because Jesus came into human history as a baby and grew into a man whose Words we can read in the Bible. He came to release us--now, while we live our days on earth, and later in eternity with Him--from bondage to pain, suffering, anxiety and every other sadness and disappointment known to man. Jesus knew these things too.

When noone else can feel our pain, Jesus does. When nobody else understands our frustration, He does. And only He can take us through it and out of it. He is the one who trains us up in the Way we should go. He not only sits with us in our brokenness, He makes us whole once again--even if our circumstances remain doubtful, even when relationships fall apart, even when sickness doesn't go away.

Jesus, being sent by God to die for us, has overcome the world. Because of that, someday we'll leave here and be with Him forever. But Jesus will overcome our own personal world too. Right here. Today. Now.

Let Jesus in to your Christmas. Let Jesus in to your life.

"Why are you so downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God." Psalm 42:5-6

"Find rest, O my soul, in God alone; my hope comes from him. He alone is my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress, I will not be shaken." Psalm 62:5-6

"And hope does not disapppoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us." Romans 5:5

"May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit." Romans 15:13