December is a wonderful month, it’s a time when people seem more hopeful. They are hoping for a great visit with family and friends, they are hoping for something special under the tree, they are hoping for a better year (maybe a raise), they are hoping for change and growth and certainty.
This is a perfect time to teach our children (and remind ourselves) of where our hope lies. While they have all these feelings floating around inside them and while hope is so easy to observe in others, it’s an opportunity for us to point them to Christ and the Hope of Heaven. Baby Jesus came to save, and our hope is in this, that He delivered us from sin and will give us an eternity of perfect peace, without tears, or punishment, or pain. Eternal Hope! Heaven, God in our presence, physically with Him, speaking to Him, adoring Him, knowing Him perfectly. What a Hope!
We who serve the God of Hope must take every opportunity set before us to practice hope, to teach hope to our children and to tell people what hope means according to Scripture.
- May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope. Romans 15
- For to this end we toil and strive, because we have our hope set on the living God, who is the Savior of all people, especially of those who believe. 1 Timothy 4
- …we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us. We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever… Hebrews 6
- having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints Ephesians 1
