Hope is the anchor of our souls (Hebrews 6:19).  It keeps us from losing it all when the storms of life beat against us.  What about when I’m about to give up hope?  What if my situation looks so bleak that I feel hopeless?  While no quick, magic answer can be given in a few words to instantly remedy the most difficult situations we face in life, there are some truths from God’s word that can help us from giving up hope.

1. God created you, a human being, in His image (Genesis 1:26). You are of immense value to God (Luke 12:7).  He is the Father of our spirits (Hebrews 12:9).  All souls belong to Him (Ezekiel 18:4).  God gave us an eternal soul, and no matter what happens to us in this life, we can choose to be faithful to Him and, after death, return to Him to live forever in a place far better than anything this world has to offer (Ecclesiastes 12:7).
2. As part of the body of Christ, the church, you are important (Romans 12:4-5; 1 Corinthians 12:18-22). You may feel unloved, but you are an important part of God’s family who can help growth occur through love (Ephesians 4:16).
3. Jesus understands your pain. He knows what it is like to live in the flesh (Hebrews 2:14).  He was made like His brethren in order to be a merciful high priest (Hebrews 2:17).  While He was here in the flesh, He cried (Hebrews 5:7).  Even though He knows the solution to our problems, He still weeps with us because of our pain (John 11:35).  He even asked in agony on the cross, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46).
4. Help is available. We can always say, “My help cometh from the LORD, which made heaven and earth” (Psalm 121:2).  God is with us even in the valley of the shadow of death (Psalm 23:4).  He hears our cries of distress (Psalm 18:6).

As we are reminded of the hope we still have, we must take life a day at a time (Matthew 6:34).  When we gradually regain our resolve and confidence in God, day by day, we can make decisions as they come.  Remember we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us (Philippians 4:13).  There are many things we cannot control, but when it comes to what we can control, we must work out our own salvation, by doing our part to overcome the trials that come our way (Philippians 2:12; cf. Galatians 6:5). “Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost” (Romans 15:13).

-Mark Day

Jesus is Lord. Those who claim to belong to Christ say it, we pray it, we sing it, but do we live it?  When we say, “Jesus is Lord,” we ought to be doing more than merely acknowledging He created the universe.  If He is Lord, then He has complete control of our lives (Colossians 1:15-18).  We are to sanctify the Lord, setting Him upon the throne of our hearts even when it is difficult to follow Him (1 Peter 3:15).

I suppose that many of us in this contemporary age do not like being told what to do.  We want Jesus to be our Savior, but we are not so big on Him being our Lord.  We cannot have one without the other.  When following Him is easy, we’ll let Him have the chair, but we still want to sit on the throne when temptations come (Luke 8:13).  Some of us have believed the religious lie that we can practice selective obedience – where we choose when we will and will not obey.  This is no kind of obedience.  This is why the religious world lives in confusion because people adapt their own standards for their faith, morality, worship, and life rather than conforming to the words of the Master, the standard that will judge us all (John 12:48).  Many will follow God’s word when it fits in with their wishes, but they also seem to think that God has opened His throne to man’s feelings when following the word of God becomes too morally or socially challenging.  And yet, they rejoice in the promises of God all the while failing to heed His conditions for salvation.  They claim they love the Lord, but they do not listen to Him; love listens and obeys (Luke 6:46; John 14:15).  To merely listen to what the Lord says without obeying is to follow the foolish to destruction (Matthew 7:24-27).  How can we claim to know God and have His grace working in our lives if when it comes to His word we have stopped up ears (Matthew 13:15)?

Jesus says we are to obey all things that He has commanded (Matthew 28:20).  The church is not a democracy where everyone should think up ways that they feel would best express our religion and then decide what is to be done by majority vote.  The church is a monarchy; it is a kingdom established by the King of Kings (Matthew 16:18-19; 1 Timothy 6:14-15).  He has all authority (Matthew 28:18).  Christ is the head of the church (Colossians 1:18).  It is our duty as the body to precisely follow the lead of the head, not to act independently of Him (Colossians 2:19).

Many claim to know the Lord, but the only way to truly know if we know Him is to keep His commandments (1 John 2:3).  This will determine whether He knows us in the judgment (Matthew 7:21-23; 25:12).

-Mark Day

When another God-ordered period of discipline for the Israelites was accomplished, God desired Gideon to deliver His people from their Midianite oppressors (Judges 6:1-12).  A stranger appeared to Gideon while he was threshing wheat by a winepress in order to hide it from the Midianites, who would likely confiscate his crop (Judges 6:4-6, 11; cf. Genesis 18:1-2; Hebrews 13:2).  When the stranger expressed that God was with Gideon, he replied with his doubts whether the Lord was still with Israel (Judges 6:12-13).  When told he would deliver Israel, Gideon also had doubts as to his own fitness as a leader (Judges 6:15).  Gideon then asked for a sign by which he would know that God would use him to deliver Israel; God granted this request  (Judges 6:17-24).

God has always given signs to accompany a new message from Him (Heb. 2:3-4).  God does not expect us to listen to a stranger without proof (1 John 4:1).  Instead, He gives signs that provide evidence in order that we might believe (John 14:11; 20:30-31).

After rallying a group of 32,000 men to meet the vast army (135,000 men) of Midianites and their allies who were gathered in the valley of Jezreel, Gideon asked for more signs.  Placing a piece of wool fleece on the ground, he asked the Lord to make it wet with dew while the ground remained dry (Judges 6:36).  The next morning, God granted this sign as well (Judges 6:38).  Then Gideon pleaded that the Lord would not grow angry with him, and he asked for another sign: the reverse of the previous sign – that the fleece be dry and the ground wet (Judges 6:39).  God granted this request that night (Judges 6:40).  It seems that the men gathered with Gideon would have seen the wet fleece wrung out in the morning and then the dry fleece when the ground was wet with due after the next night.  These signs gave them faith to follow Gideon as their commander, for if God could make a difference between the fleece and the floor, He could make a difference between them and the Midianites.

There is nothing wrong with making an investigation and wanting proof in order to have a sure faith.  True followers of God are not without their doubts.  We may have questions regarding scientific research in our day, why we suffer, the accuracy of the Bible, or many other topics that challenge our faith.  We should be free to ask them and to help one another find answers and continue to be faithful when we do not have all the answers.  Certainly when proof is provided, we need to accept it; we do not want to be “ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth” 2 Timothy 3:7.  However, we should remember the charge of 1 Thessalonians 5:21, “Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.”  If we are lovers of the truth, we should not be afraid of thorough investigation.

May the Flatwoods church of Christ be a congregation where honest questions are welcomed and truth is pursued, obtained, and held.

-Mark Day

Jesus told a parable in Matthew 25:14-30 about a man travelling into a far country and delivering money into the hands of his servants to put to use while he was away.  One servant was given five talents and with them he gained five talents more by the time his lord returned.  Another man was given two talents, and, accordingly, had gained two more when the master had returned.  But the one-talent man was afraid and hid his talent in the earth (Matthew 25:18).  When the Lord returned, the man made the excuse, “Lord, I knew thee that thou art an hard man, reaping where thou hast not sown, and gathering where thou hast not strawed: And I was afraid, and went and hid thy talent in the earth: lo, there thou hast that is thine” (Matthew 25:24-25).  But fear of taking a risk was not acceptable to the master.  In Matthew 25:26-30 he replied:

Thou wicked and slothful servant, thou knewest that I reap where I sowed not, and gather where I have not strawed: Thou oughtest therefore to have put my money to the exchangers, and then at my coming I should have received mine own with usury. Take therefore the talent from him, and give it unto him which hath ten talents. For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath. And cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Some perceive the church as an entity which spreads fear.  No doubt there are fearful things awaiting the disobedient and we should fear what God can do to us (Matthew 10:28).  But fear can also have a crippling effect.  Some of those in the lake of fire will be the fearful (Revelation 21:8). Fear is a motivation (2 Corinthians 5:11). But fear cannot be my only motivating factor in the Christian life. Remember it is the love of Christ that compels us (2 Corinthians 5:14), and perfect love casts out fear so that we have boldness in the day of judgment (1 John 4:17-18).

I can be so afraid of the world that I never try to engage the world to spread the message of Jesus Christ.  We should not love the world’s ideals, which are antagonistic to God (1 John 2:15).  However, God loves the world in the sense that He loves every individual enough to give His Son for them (John 3:16).  There are harmful pollutants of the soul out there in the world that I want to avoid (2 Peter 2:20).  However, let’s not get the idea that the church should be an over-protective institution that demonizes the people of the world to the point that the members of the Lord’s church are too afraid to interact with the people of the world.  Let’s not be afraid to turn the world upside down (Acts 17:6).  Let’s not be afraid to go out into all the world with the message of Jesus (Mark 16:15-16).  Let’s not be afraid to sit with sinners, not to engage in their sin, but as our Savior did, to provide them spiritual healing (Mark 2:16-17).  “For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind” (2 Timothy 1:7).

-Mark Day