Hope for the Present

I hope you are all having a wonderful Celebration of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!!!!!!
Hope.....Faith is the hope of things to come.  But when suffering pours in like a flood and your head is barley above the water...do you find, like me, that your faith has a tendency to waver.  When my faith is weak and shaky I usually feel like I'm even less deserving of Christ’s incredible promises to me.  Promises like that all things work together for good to those who love Him and are called according to His purposes; and He desires to give me a hope and future.  Our enemy loves when our struggling to hang on in the storms of life and our shaky faith during those times lead to even more weaker faith with this way of thinking.  Do you find yourself caught up in the same boat?  The amazing thing we must always remember is that Christ doesn't ask for perfect strong faith He only asks for faith as large as a mustard seed.  And when I find myself here....angry at myself for my lack of faith in the amazing resurrection power of our beautiful Savior.....I turn my mind to the story of His resurrection.
As I sat listening to the pastor deliver the Easter service this morning, he shined light on a part of the Easter story many over look.  He pointed out that despite the fact that the followers of Christ had seen so many unbelievable miracles to enhance His divine power over life and death as He lived and served His heavenly Father on earth, and despite the fact that He told them not just once but several times that He would indeed die but on the third day rise from the grave.....who of His followers were there waiting outside of the tomb the morning of His resurrection???  Let that sink in beloved.  Not one of His followers were camping out waiting for what they should have known was coming....if they would have had the faith to believe what He promised.  But yet they came that glorious morning to the tomb...not with banners welcoming the risen King, but with burial spices to put on His dead body....they really should not have been surprised when His body was not found in the open tomb.  Does this lack of faith hit a familiar nerve for you?  Well it does for me!  Lord forgive my misbelief!!!
When my head is barley making it above the waves.....I choose to have faith as small as a mustard seed and hang on to the promises I don't deserve and can't see but are meant for me....for you.  Hold onto the hope of those promises.....the promise that we have salvation in His brutal death and glorious resurrection!!  That we can call upon that very same amazing power that raised Him from the grave and will one day raise us as well, to get through each and every storm!!  Our sin, our sorrow and our suffering can not and will not hold us back from the faith we have in His saving power and the hope we have in our living Savior!!!  Thank You Yeshua!!!!!  The enemy is never the victor and we are never without hope when we put our faith in You!!!!  Amen!!
We do not need to live defeated....yes it is what we deserve--I deserve to succumb to the storms and not reach out for my Saviors hand reaching down to me, for its I who broke His law!  In my mind I deserve the pain of the storm...yet this is what our Savior says and offers:
"And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses, having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us.  And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.  Having disarmed principalities and powers, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it."
~Colossians 2:4
 Have faith!!  Christ did not die and rise again so we could live defeated by our sin or the storms of life!  Thank you Lord!!!!!
"Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth!" 
~Colossians 3:2

Christ died and was raised so..."that you may Know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places..."  ~Ephesians 1:18b-20