In the last few weeks I’ve heard a number of stories of faith and hope that have really challenged me. I don’t know where they originated, and I’m not sure I captured them accurately, but here is an extract from my journal as I have pondered on them.
Faith expressed in hope lets other people see the hope we have because of our faith in Jesus. As people seek connectivity online they are searching for hope. Will they see it in the Christian community? Once you had no hope but now you do have hope. You have rights as children of God: We, too, wait with eager hope for the day when God will give us our full rights as his adopted children, including the new bodies he has promised us. We were given this hope when we were saved. (If we already have something, we don’t need to hope for it. But if we look forward to something we don’t yet have, we must wait patiently and confidently.) Romans 8:23-25 NIV
There was a man in a country inhospitable to Christians, who took a red-letter bible (where the words of Jesus are highlighted in red) as a tract to give to people he met. Someone stopped and asked, “Aren’t you afraid to share this?” The man replied, “Yes, I am afraid to share this, but I am more afraid that my people will not know Jesus.”
It is so easy to lose our passion for Jesus in the humdrum of every day life. Maybe a pandemic is a good time to remember that Jesus came that we might have healing through His Spirit. And He rose from the dead so that we no longer have to fear death. Surely that is good news that we need to share right now.
A woman had a dream that a member of her family who was in hospital with COVID-10 was going to die. When she woke up, she felt a prompting of the Spirit and made a phone call to talk to them in hospital. As she concluded the conversation she prayed with the sick person. Within 24 hours that person had died. The Doctor attending the patient heard the prayer on the phone and saw the countenance of the patient change. When the Doctor spoke to the family he told them that he had never seen the impact of a prayer on person quite like that, and in that moment he chose to believe in God. Through following the lead of the Spirit and being bold enough to pray on the phone one person died in peace and another came into the Kingdom!
How do we become the kind of people that recognise the promoting of the Spirit and seize the opportunities He presents? We join together with others in Fellowship Band, to seek and see more of God, and practice boldness!
Sam is a life-long disciple who is currently on mission with Jesus as the Inspire Administrator.
We would love to hear your stories of faith and hope. Send them to [email protected]
