When there is no hope

How any times have you felt hopeless?

You may think there is no hope, but I have good news for you. If you have God, you have a future and your situation can change.

If you say there is no hope, you are listening to the devil, who is the father of lies (John 8:44), and you have encountered the thief who comes to steal, kill and destroy (John 10:10). Before Peter ever stumbled and denied the Lord, Jesus told him that He had prayed for him that his faith might not fail; and that once he turned again, he was to strengthen his brethren. There is hope even when you stumble and fall.

As we look at hopelessness, we need to realize is that, to one degree or another, we all deal with it. To be hopeless means:
-that something didn't quite measure up to your dreams or its potential.
-you didn't achieve your goal and failed to reach your expectations.
-you didn't hit the standard you had set and were not given a second chance to redo it.
-you didn't accomplish what you thought you could accomplish and what you wanted to achieve.

But as I said before, you are not alone. Every person you look at and envy, or wish you could change places with, has been hopeless at one time or another. And although they may not tell you, they, too, are probably dealing with the feeling of hopelessness even now to one degree or another in one or more areas of their lives.

The problem is not that we have no hope, but how we handle disappointments and failures when they interfere with our goals. We are all born into a state of hopelessness and that's why God is there for you when you feel there is no way out. That's why Jesus came with the purpose of restoring hope where there was none.

Romans 3:23 tells us that we all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. In this verse, the word for sin means to miss the mark. So in essence, we struggle to be all we should be. Man was made in the image of God but man has failed to manifest His image to the world. To one degree or another, we come short of His godliness. But that does not have to be the end of the story. Not with God.

Jude 24 says, "Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy..." It is Jesus who is able to bring you out of sin, out of your hopelessness, and to help you be all that God intended you to be. His purpose is to purchase you out of your sin and out of your failure. He is the One who rescues us from eternal death and destruction, brings us into eternal life and then protects us in every storm of difficulty that we face.

Victory over hopelessness begins with our salvation and the infilling of the Holy Spirit. The Lord promises He will never leave us nor forsake us. That you can believe because this is what God says in Hebrews 13:5 and God does not lie.

So what do we do when we face hopelessness in our walk with Jesus?
-You must not say there is no hope, help, or way out. To say that would be to deny the power of the One who has rescued you from the greatest struggles hopelessness can bring. "If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?" (Romans 8:31-32).

-Remember God is always there for you. To not believe this is to insult Him and to say God does not mean what He says and does not watch over His Word to perform it.

So remember in Christ there is hope. You just have to believe. Rebuke hopelessness and praise the Lord even when there seems to be no way out. When you do, they will be.