A Year in Review: August 2022 – Hope: An Anchor For Our Souls

In August, our theme was Hope: An Anchor For Our Souls. We, as hope carriers, set out to spread the hope of Jesus to those in hopeless situations.

Though we live In a time when many are turning away from serving the Lord, I am compelled to encourage you to hold on! I know it gets hard and sometimes we want to throw up our hands and say “what’s the use?”

But let me tell you, there is a fierce war being waged for you in the Spiritual realm. Our Heavenly Father is always fighting for us, and He cannot lose!

So what do you do as the war rages on? Choose to trust! Choose to hold on to what you know with all that you have.

In the book of Jeremiah, he addressed the people of Judah who had chosen to turn away from God. In the 17 chapter, Jeremiah contrasts those that trust in others and those that trust in God.

“Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart departs from the Lord. For he shall be like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see when good comes, but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land which is not inhabited. Jeremiah 17:5-6

Those who trust in man are like a dry shrub in the desert!

Note the contrast:

“Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, and whose hope is the Lord. For he shall be like a tree planted by the waters, which spreads out its roots by the river, and will not fear when heat comes; but its leaf will be green, and will not be anxious in the year of drought, nor will cease from yielding fruit. Jeremiah 17:7-8

Those whose hope is in the Lord, and well watered! They can flourish, even in the most difficult circumstances. Even in seasons of drought, you will not cease to yield fruit. This is an unshakeable hope that only comes from trusting in Jesus.

So:

• Don’t trust in riches that can be here today and gone tomorrow.
• Don’t set your hopes on human promisers. They are fallible! They WILL always disappoint you.
• Don’t trust in yourselves! As Jeremiah says later in that same chapter: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; Who can know it?”

If you do, you are like that shrub in the desert. Like dry tumbleweed rolling around aimlessly.

Instead, let your hope be rooted in Jesus! Hope rooted in the Lord is an UNSHAKEABLE HOPE! The Lord will always show us that He can be trusted. The hope we have in Jesus is an anchor for our very souls.