November 25, 2024

You Are The Voice of Hope

December 6, 2014 by

SHhopeadvent

As high as the heavens are above the earth
So high are Your ways to mine
Ways so perfect they never fail me
I know You are good all the time
And through the storm yet I will praise You
Despite it all yet I will sing
Through good or bad yet I will worship
For You remain the same King of kings

You are the voice of hope
The Anchor of my soul
Where there seems to be no way
You make it possible
You are the Prince of peace
Amidst adversity
My lips will shout for joy
To You the Most High

You were the One before time began
There’s nothing beyond Your control
My confidence my assurance
Rest in Your unchanging word

Singer/Songwriter: Lara Martin along with the Abundant Life Church choir & orchestra

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This Week…HOPE (Advent, week one)

December 5, 2014 by

SHhopeadvent

This week, here on the Seeking Him devotional blog, Ann, Ahmee, Cynda, and Tina have written such wonderful devotionals encouraging us to hold onto the hope that comes through our Lord, Jesus Christ.

At the beginning of the week, in Advent Week One…Hope, Tina shared a wonderful resource that outlined some ideas about Advent and specifically about the symbolism and Scriptural background of lighting the candles on an Advent wreath.  She also wrote,

“The first week of the Advent season is to acknowledge hope. Hope is where we realize that God will always fulfill His promises. It does not mean we will not see troubles, but we will see God’s best, as long as we seek His Will first. As we celebrate this Christmas season, let’s just forget the political correctness…let us worship and proclaim our Savior’s birth as never before!”

~   ♥   ~

In Living Hope, Cynda shared this great perspective.

“Look at it this way:

  • Without Christ…there is no Christmas.
  • Without that miraculous birth…there is no crucifixion or resurrection.
  • Without Christ’s resurrection…there would be no hope.

Christ alone is our eternal hope, our living hope.”

~   ♥   ~

In False Hope, Ahmee helped us to see what TRUE hope is…and what FALSE hope is.

“Hope is a good thing. Hope means ‘to trust in, wait for, look for, or desire something or someone; or to expect something beneficial in the future‘. I’ve also heard it said that hope is a confident expectation of good.

False hope is a powerful tool, as well. I would say that false hope is hope in something that either is not real, distorted, (but most clearly) not grounded in God Almighty. False hope is putting your trust in human beings and believing that they have the ability to do what only God can do.”

~   ♥   ~

In Hope in the Lord, Ann reminded us what God has promised in Isaiah 40:31—

“Those who hope in the Lord have His promise of…

  • strength to revive them in the midst of exhaustion and weakness and suffering and trial
  • the ability to rise above their difficulties like an eagle that soars into the sky
  • the ability to run spiritually without tiring
  • being able to walk steadily forward without fainting at God’s delays”

~   ♥   ~

Dear Lord, we rest on the promises You have made knowing You are a faithful God.   Thank You for Your promise of a Savior, a Redeemer and the birth of Your Son that fulfilled that promise.  Thank You for Your promise, Lord, that You will return and Your will gather Your church and You will bring us to our eternal home.  As we continue through this season of Advent…focusing on all that the birth of Immanuel means…may our hope be sure and steadfast.  We love You and adore You…and pray in Jesus’ name.  Amen.

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Living Hope

December 4, 2014 by

SHhopeadvent

Praise the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
According to His great mercy, He has given us a new birth into a living hope
through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
1 Peter 1:3 HCSB

Easton’s Bible Dictionary defines hope as

“one of the three main elements of Christian character (1 Corinthians 13:13). It is joined to faith and love, and is opposed to seeing or possessing. Christ is the actual object of the believer’s hope.”

Hope is when we eagerly look forward to something.

Rebecca VanNoord states “We don’t often realize where we put our hope. We can seek sustenance, energy, or relief in the most transient, innocuous things—from our morning coffee to a vacation we’ve been anticipating for months. These things are not bad in themselves, but if they constantly serve as minor fixes in our daily lives, they can shift our focus. We can end up trading God’s help for caffeine and a few days in the sun.”   (Go here to read the rest of this article.)

Ouch!  (Especially the coffee/caffeine part.)  “Shift our focus.” I don’t know about you, but my focus is easily shifted. How is it then that we are to place our hope in an infant born in a stable and keep our focus on something we have never seen or experienced? Especially in the world today where Christmas has been commercialized and Christ is being taken out of Christmas.

Look at it this way:

  • Without Christ…there is no Christmas.
  • Without that miraculous birth…there is no crucifixion or resurrection.
  • Without Christ’s resurrection…there would be no hope.

Christ alone is our eternal hope, our living hope.

Lamentations 3:24 (AMP) says “The Lord is my portion or share, says my living being (my inner self); therefore will I hope in Him and wait expectantly for Him.”  It is Christ living in us that gives us hope.  1 Timothy 4:10 (HCSB) states,

In fact, we labor and strive for this,
because we have put our hope in the living God,
who is the Savior of everyone,
especially of those who believe.

Our hope is in the living God—the Savior who busted through the gates of hell and conquered death in our place. That’s where I need to keep my focus. It is in that hope I find my joy.  Who knew that one small baby born in a stable would have such a profound affect on the whole world?  God did.  He knew that Holy Infant would be our living hope.

*   ♥  ~  ✝  ~  ★    *

Father, thank You for the living hope we have in the birth of Your One and Only Son. Let us be mindful that we have that living hope inside of us, to be shared with those whose lives we touch.  Thank You for that precious birth that changed our future and gives us such hope.  In Your Holy name we pray, Amen—it is so!

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Come Thou Long-Expected Jesus

December 3, 2014 by

 

SHhopeadventI wait for the Lord, I expectantly wait, and in His word do I hope.
I am looking and waiting for the Lord more than watchmen for the morning,
I say, more than watchmen for the morning.
O Israel, hope in the Lord!
For with the Lord there is mercy and loving-kindness,
and with Him is plenteous redemption.
And He will redeem Israel from all their iniquities.
Psalms 130:5-8

Come, Thou long-expected Jesus
Born to set Thy people free
From our fears and sins release us
Let us find our rest in Thee
Israel’s strength and consolation
Hope of all the earth Thou art
Dear desire of every nation
Joy of every longing heart

Born Thy people to deliver
Born a child and yet a King
Born to reign in us forever
Now Thy gracious kingdom bring
By Thine own eternal Spirit
Rule in all our hearts alone
By Thine all sufficient merit
Raise us to Thy glorious throne

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False Hope

December 2, 2014 by

SHhopeadvent

I pray that God, the Source of hope,
will fill you completely with joy and peace because you trust in Him.
Then you will overflow with confident hope through the power of the Holy Spirit.
Romans 15:13

Hope is a good thing. Hope means ‘to trust in, wait for, look for, or desire something or someone; or to expect something beneficial in the future‘. I’ve also heard it said that hope is a confident expectation of good.

We know that hope is good because Romans 15:13 tells us so!  And we know that “Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights…” (James 1:17).

Hope is

  • what pulls you out of bed in the morning when you are going through a depression
  • believing that things are going to turn out okay when you do something that seems impossible or crazy, but you are certain that God told you to do it
  • what motivates us to not give up
  • a powerful tool

False hope is a powerful tool, as well. I would say that false hope is hope in something that either is not real, distorted, (but most clearly) not grounded in God Almighty. False hope is putting your trust in human beings and believing that they have the ability to do what only God can do.

Listen to me carefully as I tred into this territory….

It’s okay to have hope for a positive future.  And it’s okay to hope that God can turn a horrible situation into a good situation.  However, when we fail to see the signs or choose to ignore them and still hope for the best, this is false hope. For example,

If God said that your friendship with a person needs to end because there is no repairing it, for you to stay in the relationship and hope for the best,  would not only be in direct disobedience to God but would not have a solid foundation.

What is (and is not) false hope is something that you have to speak to God about.  He will guide you in your situations.  Remember there is no reason to place your hope in something or someone that is not trustworthy. (Regardless of how much you want things to be a certain way.)

*   ♥  ~  ✝  ~  ★    *  

Lord, keep our hearts and our minds clear so that we trust in Your will and Your will alone.  Please help us to see the truth in our lives, and not just what we want to see. Help us to see through the lies and the schemes of Satan.  You are an all-knowing God. Please share Your knowledge with us.  Amen.

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Hope in the Lord

December 1, 2014 by

SHhopeadvent

 

We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure.
It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain,
where our forerunner, Jesus, has entered on our behalf.
Hebrews 6:19-20

Hope is a product of having faith that something that you have been looking for, or been desiring to have, will come to pass.

• Hope moves you from anxiety to fact of life
• Hope comes from deep inside your heart
• Hope gives confidence

Our Hope (the One Who moves us from anxiety and gives us confidence) is the Lord Jesus Christ.  He became our Hope of glory over 2000 years ago.  When faced with challenges in this life He (our Hope) should be our number one main Friend to go to before interacting with anyone else.

To whom God was pleased to make known how great for the Gentiles
are the riches of the glory of this mystery,
which is Christ within and among you, the Hope of glory.
Colossians 1:27

To hope in the Lord is to trust Him fully with our lives.  It involves looking to Him as our Source of help and grace in time of need.

…But those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.
Isaiah 40:31

Those who hope in the Lord have His promise of

  • strength to revive them in the midst of exhaustion and weakness and suffering and trial
  • the ability to rise above their difficulties like an eagle that soars into the sky
    the ability to run spiritually without tiring
  • being able to walk steadily forward without fainting at God’s delays

God promises that if His people will patiently trust Him, He will provide whatever is needed to sustain them constantly.

However, we hope for something we have not yet seen, and we patiently wait for it.
Romans 8:25
Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess for He Who promised is faithful.
Romans 10:23

Sisters in the Lord, remember…no one who puts his/her hope in the Lord will be put to shame.

No one whose hope is in You will ever be put to shame
but they will be put to shame who are treacherous without excuse.
Psalm 25:3

*   ♥  ~  ✝  ~  ★    *  

Dear Lord, we thank You for You are a wonderful and loving Father, Who makes promises…and always fulfills Your promises.  We love You, Abba Father, for all the promises that You have fulfilled and those that you are yet to fulfill in our lives.  We have hope because You are perfecting everything for our good.  We trust You with our anxieties, challenges, and everything about us.  We trust in You for Your help.  Please help us to sort out our issues and perfect our walk with You in Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.

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Advent, Week One ~ Hope

November 30, 2014 by

SHhopeadvent

The first week of the Advent season is to acknowledge Hope.  Hope is where we realize that God will always fulfill His promises. It does not mean we will not see troubles, but we will see God’s best, as long as we seek His will first. As we celebrate this Christmas season, let’s just forget the political correctness…let us worship and proclaim our Savior’s birth as never before!

As I researched Advent, I came across this devotional. The link is located at the end of this blog. Please feel free to use this throughout the coming season.

Lighting of the Candle

[As someone lights the first purple candle, the following should be read or paraphrased.]

We light this candle because, like God’s people centuries ago, we also look forward with hope to the coming of the Shepherd. The purple color of the candle reminds us of the seriousness of our hope.

Psalms 80:1-7
In this psalm, we join the people of Israel as they invite God, their Shepherd, to save and to restore them.

Isaiah 40:1-11
This passage looks ahead to the coming of the Lord, Who will care for His people like a shepherd.

Revelation 7:9-17
Like God’s people before the coming of Christ, we also look ahead to the time when Christ, who is both the Lamb and our Shepherd, will finish His work and “God will wipe away every tear” from our eyes.

Prayer of Hope
[To be read or paraphrased]

Dear God, as we light this candle, we hope for Your coming as our Good Shepherd. Please gather us in Your arms, feed us with spiritual food, wipe away every tear from our eyes, and “let Your face shine, that we may be saved.” Come, our Shepherd! Amen.

 

{ Read more: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/markdroberts/series/advent-devotional-guide-preparing-for-the-coming-of-christ/#ixzz3KUfQx5uJ }

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The Sacrifice Of Praise

November 29, 2014 by

seekingHimthanksgivinggraphic

 

Through Him, therefore, let us constantly and at all times
offer up to God a sacrifice of praise,
which is the fruit of lips
that thankfully acknowledge and confess and glorify His name.
Hebrews 13:15 AMP

Lord, I lift a song of worship
For Your glory and Your grace
Let my heart reveal all my words fail to say
Lord, receive this sacrifice of praise

On the mountain in the valley
As I wait in my secret place
I will trust trust in the name of the Lord
Now receive this sacrifice of praise
Now receive this sacrifice of praise

You’re my shield, You’re my shelter
From the storm and from the rain
Cover me beneath the shadow of Your wings
Lord, receive this sacrifice of praise

Hallelujah, hallelujah
Hallelujah to Your name
For all You’ve done
You are and evermore will be
Lord, receive this sacrifice of praise

 

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This Week…Hebrews 13:15

November 28, 2014 by

seekingHimthanksgivinggraphic

Through Him, therefore, let us constantly and at all times
offer up to God a sacrifice of praise,
which is the fruit of lips
that thankfully acknowledge and confess and glorify His name.
Hebrews 13:15

Oh, what encouragement I have received this week as I’ve read daily through the Seeking Him devotional!  (You, too?)  Ann, Ahmee, Clella, Cynda, and Tina have each written devotionals reminding me of the importance of offering my praise—a sacrifice of praise—to our wonderful Father God and drawing me closer to the One Who I do seek to praise and glorify!

In The Fruit Of Lips, Cynda took a good in-depth look at just what a ‘sacrifice of praise’ is and also asked a really good question…along with a few answers she found.

“But why are we compelled (Hebrews 13:15) to do it ‘constantly and at all times’?  Here are just a few of the reasons I found:

  • it glorifies God and pleases Him
  • (because of) His enduring love and goodness
  • because Jesus did
  • it is our shared inheritance

But, I think my favorite reason for giving thanks is to tell others and remind myself of all He has done in my life.“

~   ♥   ~

Then, Ann gave us some great reasons in Praise At All Times just WHY we praise God—

  • for what He has done (Psalm 9:11)
  • a four-fold reason— because we are “…a chosen people, a loyal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God….” (1 Peter 2:9)
  • and, as a commandment (Psalm 63:7)

She wrote, “So we are all to praise God; let us make a choice of doing so in the morning …in the afternoon …and in the evening time!”

~   ♥   ~

Clella shared a wonderful translation of Hebrews 13:15 with us in Proclaim Allegiance To His Name.  She wrote,

“The New Living Translation says it this way:

Therefore, let us offer through Jesus a continual sacrifice of praise to God,
proclaiming our allegiance to His Name.

The phase ‘proclaiming our allegiance to His Name’ popped out at me.  It sounded so different than the other translations that refer to ‘the fruit of lips that confess His Name.’  I just had to do a little research to understand what this verse is really saying.

– to “confess” God’s Name is to declare, state, acknowledge His Name
– to “proclaim allegiance” is to announce publicly, or to declare something one considers important with due emphasis, which in this case would be one’s loyalty or commitment of a subordinate to a superior.”

~   ♥   ~

In Verbal Sacrifice, Ahmee brought us back to the central element in Hebrews 13:15 of ‘sacrifice.’  She reminded us of reasons we have to offer our sacrifice of praise.

“Those days when you don’t feel like giving praise are the days when praise is a sacrifice. When we praise God even in our less-than-favorable moments we are saying to Him — and those around us —

  • God is our God
  • we trust Him with our lives
  • we trust in Someone bigger than us
  • we have the Almighty on our side to fight for us”

~   ♥   ~

And in Giving Thanks Tina encouraged us to remember how abundantly blessed we are here in the USA.

“The Pilgrims were so grateful to have a land to call their own and the freedom to worship God. After such a hard crossing and a hard harvest, they decided to celebrate and praise God for what they had. Let us do the same. Continuous praise should be on our lips and in our thoughts.

~   ♥   ~

So after being encouraged and admonished this week reading these devotionals each day, I am determined to be thankful to God not only on Thanksgiving Day but the next day…each day. We are to be thankful, joyful people today, tomorrow, and every day! Truly living in this manner—

Through Him, therefore, let us constantly and at all times
offer up to God a sacrifice of praise,
which is the fruit of lips
that thankfully acknowledge and confess and glorify His name.
Hebrews 13:15

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Giving Thanks

November 27, 2014 by

seekingHimthanksgivinggraphic

By Him (Jesus) therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually,
that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to His name.
Hebrew 13:15

*  ~  ♥  ~  ✞  ~  ♥  ~  *

We are so blessed in America!  We have an abundance of food, entertainment, music, and yet…we seem to be so unhappy.  There is so much that God has given us as a nation to share and help others.  This Thanksgiving, let us remember those who are less fortunate.  Let us find ways, in the near future, to serve others and receive a great blessing, more than we could ever know.

Jesus is our great Intercessor.  We are to bring everything to Him in prayer and supplication.  If we ask what is godly and right in the name of Jesus—our Father will be able to grant our request.  As we begin our day let us remember to give thanks to God for all that we have, since it is not ours.  Everything we have has been granted to us.

The Pilgrims were so grateful to have a land to call their own and the freedom to worship God.  After such a hard crossing and a hard harvest, they decided to celebrate and praise God for what they had.  Let us do the same.  Continuous praise should be on our lips and in our thoughts.  Begin each new day with thanksgiving and praise and see what a difference it will make in your life and those around you.

*  ~  ♥  ~  ✞  ~  ♥  ~  *

Father, we come before You with much thanks and praise. You have given us everything we have. Forgive us when we are ungrateful.  Help us remember You are the Giver of everything. In Jesus’ name, amen.

 

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