From the desk of Steve Shultz:
"Hope" seems to be God's word for the hour. This is true not only for the Body of Christ but also for the world surrounding us. God desires to renew our hope, to encourage us when we get discouraged over the view from our perspective. Don't stay discouraged! God has a whole different plan and perspective—and He wants to share it with you!
Garris Elkins brings a wonderful word to you from our Father...a different perspective, that you might have HOPE!
Garris Elkins:
Our Hope is in a Person
An Example of Hope
My daughter Anna is a student at the Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry in Redding, California. Our home is located near Medford, Oregon, just a few hours away from Redding by car. Recently, Anna was home on a break from school when she experienced a computer problem. She had to send it back to the manufacturer for repairs. When Anna had to leave for school, her much-needed computer had not yet returned, so the delivery was left in the hands of mom and dad.
As soon as the computer returned from being repaired, we sent it Next Day Delivery through the mail service. I got the tracking number and followed its overnight delivery and arrival at the post office nearest to our daughter's home. For the next 18 hours after the computer was sent, I tried to reach Anna via her cell phone, but could not get through due to the limited cell coverage in the rural area where she lives. There she was, waiting, and not knowing that her computer was repaired and waiting for her at the local post office. Eventually Anna got the message and picked up her computer. Life returned to normal.
This is what hope is like. We often live our lives without experiencing the power of hope because we fail to realize what is available and waiting for us. God sent a message to us about hope. Hebrews 6 tells us that hope is anchored in eternity, immovable by the events here on earth. This hope is not altered by challenging circumstances. This hope is anchored in a Person—Jesus Christ.
Therefore, we who have fled to Him for refuge can have great confidence as we hold to the hope that lies before us. This hope is a strong and trustworthy anchor for our souls. It leads us through the curtain into God's inner sanctuary. Jesus has already gone there for us.—Hebrews 6:18-20
Because we have Someone in our future directing our lives in the present moment, we do not have to live a life of desperation and hopelessness. Jesus is not held prisoner to our present reality. He always brings hope when He reveals Himself in the unfolding circumstances of our lives. Our future comes to us directly from the hand of a good and loving God in the Person of Jesus Christ. Whenever we see and hear Jesus we are seeing and hearing the very heart of the Father.
Jesus Reveals Himself in Our Moment
When Jesus reveals Himself in our moment, He does this without inserting any regrets or fear into our situation, because regret and fear are not part of God's nature. Regret and fear are the evidence of a lack of hope. God's revelation always carries with it the purity of something that cannot be altered by the brokenness of this realm. This is why hope is unaffected by what takes place on earth. Our hope is in a Person Who lives in timeless eternity.
A mentor of mine recently said, "Our present moment is a memory of our most recent past." In other words, no matter how hard we try, we will never arrive at a place called the future, because when we get there it is still just the moment in which we are living. Our moment, our only reality in this earthly realm, is a capsule of time that migrates with us through life. When we arrive at tomorrow it is only a present moment in which we are living, not a future event.
When God reveals Himself to His people in the now moment, He is experienced, not from the future, but from eternity. The word "future" is not a word based in an eternal perspective. Eternity is a realm without time—it has no past, present or future. The arrival of hope in our lives comes from a realm not limited by time and space.
From God's perspective, He views our linear time-line as happening all at once and fully complete. He sees the children of Israel crossing the Red Sea and Columbus sailing in 1492, all happening at once. He sees men landing on the moon and the next calendar year happening all at once. God makes His decisions about our lives from an eternal and perfect perspective. He sees the beginning and the end. He is the Alpha (the beginning) and the Omega (the end), and everything in between. He sees us as we will become and as we are. From the perspective of hope, we are, and are becoming, who we already are.
How we view God will influence how we relate to the existence of hope in our daily lives. If, in our thinking, there exists an angry and unapproachable God, then our present moment will draw our response to life from that fearful image. If, in our thinking, there exists a loving and good God, then we will begin to view our life and circumstances through the lens of Heaven's perspective of hope and affirmation.
The gift of prophecy is a ministry that imports hope into people's lives. A repeated theme in Paul's ministry was his strengthening and encouraging of the Church. He strengthened Believers because they felt weak. He encouraged Believers because they had become discouraged. Paul brought words of encouragement that connected weakened and discouraged saints to the hope that is anchored in eternity, out of the reach of human failings. This hope changes people's lives, because words of hope arrive on the unfolding line of natural time and diverts people away from living in hopelessness and despair into the flow of God's will for their lives.
Garris Elkins, Senior Leader
Living Waters Church - Medford, Oregon
Email: info@livingwatersmedford.org
