Dec.30.03: Light For The Day - "HOPE: Beyond the Open Door" -- Psalm 39:7 "And now, Lord, what do I wait for? My hope is in You." --------------------------- Hope is wonderful thing - a life-giving thing. Hope is why children  look for a gift under the Christmas tree even when times are hard and finances are tight. Hope makes people reach out for the joys of life. When you place your hope in Christ, it means that you are looking  forward with anticipation to the things that God has promised, and  that you expect those promises to be fulfilled. When you reach  God's promise in John 3:16 that whoever believes in Him will be  given eternal life, you believe in your heart it is true, even though  you can't directly confirm it, and you expect it will be given to you.  When you read a little later in John 10:10 that God has given you life  abundantly, you hope - meaning you desire and expect -  that this will come to pass. Imagine yourself in a room that has hundreds of doors.  You look around and wonder which one you should try to go through.  You ask God to show you, and immediately one opens.  Through faith, you believe God has opened that door for you.  Through hope, you expect God to lead you beyond that open door  into a new and wonderful place. When you place your hope in God, your outlook on life changes.  You begin to believe that the impossible can occur even if the facts  say otherwise, for with God all things are possible. You can look to  the future and honestly believe a better day is coming, even in the  worst situations. When Paul was imprisoned, his hope in Christ made  him anticipate the future, regardless of what its outcome might be.  If he lived, he looked forward to continuing his ministry with the  people in the churches he had nurtured. If he died, he knew he  would be with Christ, which was better by far! Hope in God will revive you and make you want to experience life  to its fullest. It will support you through the tough times and calm  you anxieties. So ask God to fill you with His hope. Believe in  the promises of God that you read in the Bible, and rejoice in the  fact that He will always fulfill them.  God has opened the door for your life -  He wants you to step through it and experience what lies beyond. -- Checklist 4 Life ----------------------------------- -- John 3:16 "For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son,  that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life." -- Matthew 19:26  "Jesus looked at them and said,  "With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible." -- Psalms 130:5  "I wait for the LORD, my soul waits, And in His Word I do hope." -- 2 Thessalonians 2:16  "May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved  us and by his grace gave us eternal encouragement and good hope." -- 1 Peter 1:3  "Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!  In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope  through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead." -- 1 Peter 1:13  "Therefore, prepare your minds for action; be self-controlled;  set your hope fully on the grace to be given you when  Jesus Christ is revealed." -- Romans 15:13  "Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing,  that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit."