BY GREG CRUM
PASTOR, CALVARY TEMPLE
“And, behold, two of them went that same day to a village called Emmaus, which was from Jerusalem about threescore furlongs. And they talked together of all these things which had happened. And it came to pass, that, while they communed together and reasoned, Jesus himself drew near, and went with them. But their eyes were holden that they should not know him. And he said unto them, What manner of communications are these that ye have one to another, as ye walk, and are sad?” Luke 24:13-17
These two disciples traveling the road to Emmaus those few days after the crucifixion of Christ reflected the heartache of every one of his faithful followers at that time. They were sad; they were disillusioned. Their hopes of a better tomorrow and the Kingdom of God on the Earth had been shattered. They had hoped for a king to come and for oppressive rule to be overthrown. They actually got just that, but it didn’t come as they had hoped—it came in a different way and in a different package. When all hope was lost, Jesus showed up and breathed a new hope into the hearts of his followers!
Last week we began to think about the spiritual force that is hope. We mentioned its importance in our walk with the Lord. Without hope actively working in our lives we would be faithless because our hope motivates us to put our trust in God. Without faith it would be impossible for us to experience the love of the Lord to the magnitude that He desires.
The Bible states that hope is an anchor of the soul. It is designed to keep us close to the Lord, even during the fiercest storms of life. If there’s anything we need more of in the world right now, it’s God’s kind of hope.
That’s just what the disciples needed after his death, and that’s just what they got, but as mentioned, it didn’t arise from the carcass of the old ideas they had formed—it was a new hope, a hope in something that was better than they could have ever previously imagined. Those earliest disciples of Jesus found out what we can as well, that God is a God of hope eternal! In Romans 15:13 we read that He is “the God of hope” and that He desires to fill us “with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost.”
Contrary to the “woe is me” attitude of many today, the God that several of those people claim to follow is the God of good things on the horizon! With the God of the Bible, it’s not about the “good old days,” it’s about the best that is yet to come!
With that said, in these last days that are upon us, we need to be looking for God’s new hope. We need to look for things to happen in our lives, just as God said they would happen, but in a way that is fresh and perhaps very different from the way we expected it to occur. Our blessings and God’s move in these days may come in a different package or be a different “flavor,” but it will still be God and just what His Word promised He would do.
Brothers and sisters, let’s look for and allow God to fill voids and desires in a way we didn’t expect and couldn’t imagine. It may not be the same drink that quenches the thirst, but if it’s God, it will be better.
Remember the woman at the well in Samaria? She hoped for one kind of water, but God had something different in store for her. It was a type of water that would satisfy all her desires. God has this for us all as we follow Him. I encourage you—you better get and keep your hopes up. God will see your hope and raise you a haul of fulfillment beyond your current imagination!
Greg Crum is the pastor of Calvary Temple in Lovely.