Lord’s Day, Vol. 2 No. 23
(1) Church Camp
Dear brethren, let us fervently pray for a time of spiritual blessing in this week’s church camp. Please also pray for the safety of all campers throughout the camp.
(2) Charity Hopeth All Things (1 Corinthians 13:7c)
To “hope” is to place trust in. It has the idea of confidence, optimism and earnest expectancy. Even when faith is shaken and trust is broken, biblical love continues to hope. Even in betrayal, love holds on tightly to hope. Such love knows no dead end. It sees light at the end of the tunnel. It is never hopeless but always hopeful. This love is rooted in God who is infinite, eternal and unchangeable in His love.
In the midst of much discouragement in the history of the Jewish people when the Temple was destroyed and God’s people taken captive, the prophet Jeremiah wrote in Lamentations 3:18-26, “…Remembering mine affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall. My soul hath them still in remembrance, and is humbled in me. This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope. It is of the LORD’S mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness. The LORD is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him. The LORD is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him. It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the LORD.” The anchor of Jeremiah’s hope was in the unchanging faithfulness of His LORD. His LORD would always do him good even in the midst of intense afflictions that came upon him and the Jewish people.
To possess such love that “hopeth all things”, we must begin with a good grounding of knowing who our God is; His love, His infinite power and His wisdom. Our God supplies His inexhaustible power to turn around every hopeless situation. It enables us to live above our afflictions and our sorrows. It gives strength and comfort to the bereaved that one day they will see their loved ones in the Lord again. It enables God’s children not to give up sharing the gospel with their unbelieving loved ones. It enables the terminally ill to say, I know that my Redeemer lives and that He shall stand at the latter day upon the earth and though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God (Job 19:25-26). It enables us to bury our dead with the expectation that when Christ shall come again, the dead shall rise first and they who are alive shall be caught up together with them…to meet the Lord in the air (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17).
As the world looks hopelessly to solve the problems of this life; famine, war, pestilence and even death, the Christian looks only to Jesus for his salvation and deliverance from every trial. Jesus is the source of the believer’s hope because Jesus is God. He was sent by God the Father to put on human flesh yet without sin, to die for sinful men so that hopeless men may have endless hope.
Dear readers, if you have not accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour, do not hesitate. Come and trust in Him today so that you may receive the gift of God’s love that hopeth all things.
Yours lovingly,
Pr Lek Aik Wee