Some Words Are Just Words

There has been a lot of talk in political circles lately about hope and change. Personally, I hope we get some change, but, my hope is not in the politicians. I’m not convinced that any of them actually have the best interests of the country in mind, but I believe that God does. I also believe that God can influence our next president to do things that are good for the country, even though politicians frequently resist the leading of God. My trust is in God, not in politicians.
I have been criticized in the past for having hope. Some people are so cynical that they believe that any person of any real intelligence should ‘know better’ than to have hope. Some people of faith seem to think that hope runs counter to faith. I hope to demonstrate that both of those positions are erroneous.
The word hope appears in over a hundred verses of the Bible. A lot of those times, it is describing false hope, but, in many cases it is talking about actual hope. Psalms 31:24 talks about hope in God, as do Psalms 33:18-22, 38:15, 39:7, 42:5, Proverbs 10:28, 14:32, Ecclesiastes 9:4, Isaiah 38:18, Jeremiah 14:8, 17:7, Joel 3:16, Acts 2:26. Apostle Paul talks about the hope of the resurrection in Acts 23:6 and 24:15, the hope of the promise in Acts 26:6-7, the hope that Abraham had in Romans 4:18, the hope of the glory of God in Romans 5:2, how to build hope in Romans 5:4, being saved by hope in Romans 8:24-25, and rejoicing in hope in Romans 12:12. He calls God the God of hope in Romans 15:13, and he says in 1 Corinthians 15:19 that if in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable. Think about that for a minute: he is talking about having a hope in the life to come. He is also talking about that our reward isn’t in this life. Sometimes one little thing goes wrong, and we get all upset. “I thought God was supposed to take care of us!” He does. But, that doesn’t mean that we are always going to live on easy street. Sometimes God puts us through things just so that other people can see how Christians react. He talks about the hope of salvation in 1 Thessalonians 5:8.
I think that it’s pretty safe to say that hope is a very real part of Christianity. It is not something to replace faith, but to supplement it. Any of the believers that object to the use of the word are just being overly word conscious.
I, personally, have a bad habit of referring to luck. I have been trying to avoid saying it lately, because some people object to it, and I understand that. To me, “Good luck” is just an expression. I don’t really believe in luck, although the Bible does say that time and chance happens to all men. Sometimes things just happen by chance. I don’t think luck has anything to do with it, but at the same time, I don’t really object to using the phrase, “Good luck,” as a way of saying that I hope nothing bad happens to you. I suppose that there is a better way of saying that, but a lot of people just kind of turn off when you say something that sounds really religious, like, “May God’s blessings be upon you.” There are some people that I would be willing to say that to, but not all that many.
I’m sure that there are some that will say, “Oh, but when you use a phrase like that, you are letting them know immediately that you are a Christian. It could open up a door to share your faith with them.” Yeah, good luck with that.

Update: I corrected a typo above. I meant to say 'supplement' (meaning something added to complete a thing), but accidentally typed 'supplant' (meaning to usurp the place of). Talk about one mistake undermining the entire intent of the post! Sorry about that.

A Recipe for Success as a Christian

Let’s suppose for a moment, that I were baking a cake, and I asked you to go to the store for me and pick up some eggs, buttermilk, heavy cream, and a pound of Callebaut chocolate, would you then assume that those ingredients are all that goes into a cake? Probably not, in fact, you probably have a pretty good idea, that some of those ingredients I don’t actually need to make a cake, I just need those for this particular recipe. What if I asked you for all-purpose flour, baking powder, vegetable oil, and vanilla? I might be able to make a cake with those ingredients, but it probably wouldn’t be very tasty. More likely, though, you would realize that I already had most of the ingredients I needed for the recipe that I was using. (By the way, I don’t carry around cake recipes in my head, the one that I used for this illustration can be found here.)
Sometimes people get hung up on the idea that in various places in the gospels, Jesus told one person that they had to one thing to be saved, but told another to do something else. Keep in mind that Jesus knew what state each of those people were in. He knew, so to speak, which individuals had flour, milk, eggs, vanilla, baking powder, or vegetable oil. He was telling them what they needed, and, in some cases, He was telling them one thing, knowing that it would lead to other things. In Luke 7, there is a beautiful story about Jesus being invited to dinner at the home of a Pharisee named Simon, but, a woman, whom Simon didn’t approve of, followed Jesus in. After some discussion, Jesus tells the woman that her faith has saved her. In Luke 8:12, Jesus, in explaining the parable of the sower, says that the wayside represents people that hear the Word, but don’t accept it, lest they “…believe and be saved,” which would imply that belief is the only ingredient of salvation. That doesn’t necessarily follow, although if one truly believes, there will be other actions that follow from that belief. John 10:9 makes it clear that Jesus is the only way to be saved, but He doesn’t really talk about how to be saved, just that He is the way. Now, in Matthew 10:22, Matthew 24:13, and Mark 13:13, Jesus says that one must endure to the end to be saved. Endure what? Well, reading Matthew 24 and Mark 13, we see that Jesus talks a lot about His followers being persecuted. We have a bad tendency to think that because we live in a country that is predominantly Christian, that was founded on Christian principles, where freedom of religion is the law of the land, that we will never have to endure persecution, but there are those around us who won’t like us living a Christian life, and will give us problems (certainly not to the extent that the early church had problems, but still). Now, Mark 16:16 says, “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.” Now, some people look at that and say, “Oh, but it doesn’t say that he that is not baptized is damned,” but, again, that’s part of a recipe.
In Romans 8:24, Paul tells us that we are saved by hope. Is hope better than faith? Or does hope lead to faith? In Romans 10:9, Paul says, “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.” Now Jesus never said anything about confessing Him, should we then ignore what Jesus said and just go by what Paul said? Of course not, but neither should we ignore Paul, either.
What we definitely don't want to do is try to live by part of the Scripture, and ignore the rest. This is not a cafeteria. although I think we all have a tendency to be cafeteria Christians.