Category: Religious Messages

“Hope is confidence in God … not wishful thinking.  To have hope is to trust in God to meet our needs … even in the midst of difficult times.  When we do go through tough times our confidence in God can get a little rattled, as the Old Testament figure Job experienced.  In the midst of his pain and heartache he cried out, ‘Where then is my hope?  Who can see any hope for me?’ (Job 17:15)

Ultimately, hope comes from God.  The Scriptures say, ‘May the God of hope fill you all with 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)  Hope is an essential element of the Christian’s life.  In 1 Corinthians 13, the Apostle Paul included hope as one of the top three qualities of a person’s life: ‘And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love.  But the greatest of these is love.’ (1 Cor. 13:13)

Can a person be filled with hope without being filled with optimism?  According to the encyclopedia, optimism is ‘to anticipate the best possible outcome.’  Can we demonstrate hope in God without anticipating the best possible outcomes of the situations we face?

I believe we can.  In fact, I think hope is best exemplified when it is demonstrated in the face of negative circumstances.  There are many times when hope and optimism go hand in hand.  David had both when he faced Goliath. He had confidence in God and he expected the best possible outcomes … Goliath’s defeat and an Israelite victory over the Philistines.  And yet, there are many examples of people who had hope in God but did not anticipate the best possible outcomes.

Simon Peter is a good example.  He and the disciples had been fishing all night and had caught nothing.  They had worked so hard and yet still had nothing to show for their labors.  And then Jesus tells them to cast out the net one more time.  Simon did not expect to catch any fish.  He was pessimistic.  But, he had confidence in Jesus, so he cast the net.  Though the circumstances did not look promising, his hope in God made up for his lack of optimism.

The point is this: hope and optimism are not the same thing.  You can still be hopeful even if you are not optimistic.  You can still be a dispenser of hope even if you think you are going to face hard times ahead because you know that God will meet your needs.

Hope doesn’t mean that the best possible situations will always occur, but it does mean that in some way God will bring something good or useful out of the situation.  As we look into the future, we many not always be filled with optimism, but we must always be filled with hope … God is still in control!”

www.healthandwellnessfl.com, By Paster Timothy L. Neptune

“Faith is an attribute of the soul.  It is the inner spiritual knowledge of the Creative Forces of the universe.  As we become cognizant of the physical body through the senses, so we may become aware of the soul through the activity of its attributes.  Faith may be denied or renounced until it ceases to exist within the consciousness of the physical mind.  It can be acknowledged and exercised until it will remove mountains.  That which is brought into consciousness through the activity of spiritual forces, manifesting in and through the spiritual force of the individual, becomes the essence of faith itself.  Hence, it has been termed by many that faith, pure faith, accepts or rejects without basis of reason, beyond the ken and scope of that which is perceived through — that which we bring to our activity through — the five senses.

‘Faith,’ as defined by Barnabas, ‘is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.’  (Hebrew 11:1)  Faith knows that it has already received and acts accordingly, doubting nothing.  It is the builder of the seemingly impossible. It is that which has brought into manifestation all that has ever existed.  God is, faith is.  It is the evidence of God’s promise fulfilled.  Man’s divine privilege is to accept, use, develop, and enjoy the fruits of faith.

In the material world, we often mistake confidence for faith.  We are prone to depend upon our physical senses, forgetting that they are deceptive.  This is not faith, but confidence — for confidence comes through the physical senses.  When trials and disasters arise, that are seemingly beyond our power to control, we begin to sink, and immediately in hopelessness and distress we cry out, ‘Lord, help me, I perish!’  It is then that the Voice speaks, ‘O ye of little faith!’  (Luke 12:28)

We stumble, we falter, even when we have the divine promise, ‘If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say to this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.’ ” (Matt. 17:20). With such a promise, should we not cry out, ‘Lord, I believe; help Thou mine unbelief’? (Mark 9:24)”

A Search For God, Pgs. 43 – 44, Based on Edgar Cayce readings 262-13 through 262-17, Association For Research And Enlightenment, Inc.

“The bags we grab are not made of leather; they’re made of burdens.  The suitcase of guilt.  A sack of discontent.  You drape a duffel bag of weariness on one shoulder and a hanging bag of grief on the other.  Add on a backpack of doubt, an overnight bag of loneliness, and a trunk of fear.  Pretty soon you’re pulling more stuff than a skycap.  No wonder you’re so tired at the end of the day.  Lugging baggage is exhausting.

No one has to remind you of the high cost of anxiety.  Worry divides the mind. The biblical word for worry (merimnao)  is a compound of two Greek words, merizo (to divide) and nous (the mind).  Anxiety splits our energy between today’s priorities and tomorrow’s problems.  Part of our mind is on the now; the rest is on the not yet.  The result is half-minded living.

That’s not the only result.  Worrying is not a disease, but it causes diseases.  It has been connected to high blood pressure, heart trouble, blindness, migraine headaches, thyroid malfunctions, and a host of stomach disorders.

Anxiety is an expensive habit.  Of course, it might be worth the cost if it worked.  But it doesn’t.  Our frets are futile.  Jesus said, ‘You can’t add any time to your life by worrying about it.’ (Matt. 6:27)  Worry has never brightened a day, solved a problem, or cured a disease.  But you can overcome worry.

God leads us.  He tells us what we need to know, when we need to know it.  As a New Testament writer would affirm, ‘We will find grace to help us when we need it.’ (Heb. 4:16 NLT) or ‘Let us therefore boldly approach the throne of our gracious God, where we may receive mercy and in his grace find timely help.’ (Heb. 4:16 NEB)  God’s help is timely.”

Traveling Light – Releasing The Burdens You Were Never Intended To Bear – The Promise Of Psalm 23, Max Lucado, p. 171, 48-49.

“I often wonder what would it be like if Jesus were alive today.  Imagine Jesus — who wasn’t a Christian, after all, but a Jew — entering a church today, going up to the pulpit, and giving a sermon.  Can you imagine how challenging that would be for the congregation?  Can you imagine how uniquely different that sermon would be from what many of us received in church?

In the Gospels, Jesus repeatedly challenges the religious authorities of the day, but ultimately what he’s saying is relevant to all forms of religion.  It wouldn’t matter if he grew up a Jew, or a Christian, or a Buddhist, or a Hindu, because he’s speaking about the structure of religion itself — its hierarchy, its tendency to become corrupted by human beings’ desires for power, for influence, for money.

Matthew 23: 1 – 4 –  Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, ² “The teachers of religious law and the Pharisees are the official interpreters of the law of Moses. ³ So practice and obey whatever they tell you, but don’t follow their example. For they don’t practice what they teach. ⁴ They crush people with unbearable religious demands and never lift a finger to ease the burden.”

Jesus, I think, had a profound understanding that the religion itself, instead of connecting us to the radiance of being, connecting us to that spiritual mystery, could easily become a barrier to divinity.  As soon as we get too caught up with the rites and the rituals and the Thou Shalts and Thou Shalt Nots of conventional religion, we begin to lose sight of the primary task of religion, which is to orient us toward the mystery of being and to awaken us to what we really are.”

John 1: 12 – 13 – “Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— ¹³ children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.”

1 Peter 2:9 – 9 But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.”

Ephesians 6: 11 – 14 – “Put on all of God’s armor so that you will be able to stand firm against all strategies of the devil. ¹² For we are not fighting against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places.¹³ Therefore, put on every piece of God’s armor so you will be able to resist the enemy in the time of evil. Then after the battle you will still be standing firm. ¹⁴ Stand your ground, putting on the belt of truth and the body armor of God’s righteousness.”

Resurrecting Jesus: Embodying the Spirit of a Revolutionary Mystic, Adyashanti, p. 22-23.

Adyashanti is an American spiritual teacher and author from the San Francisco Bay Area who offers talks, online study courses, and retreats in the United States and abroad.