“Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost.” (). 

Rom. 15:13 KJV

With all the bad things happening in our nation and our world, it is easy to become disheartened and discouraged.   For those who are parents and grandparents, it is easy to become anxious and even fearful over the future of our loved ones. In desperation, we look for someone who can offer us hope.  In the search for hope, we often look to a political candidate or to a political party to give us that hope.  But in reality, genuine hope cannot be found in them.   Such hope is temporary and fleeting. It is not lasting. 

Real and lasting hope can only be found in The God of Hope as revealed in the Person of Jesus Christ!   Jesus came into our dark world and revealed the glory of God, the love of God, and the power of God!   He came to give us hope!  He gives hope to all who put their trust in Him.   It is a sure and certain hope!   That hope is for the present.   And that hope is for the future.

For the present, we have the confident and sure promise that no matter what happens Jesus is with us!   He has promised to never leave us nor forsake us! (Heb. 13:5).  He will guide us when we don’t know what to do.  He will strengthen us when we are weak.  He will provide for us in the face of every need.  He will comfort us in the midst of sorrow and loss.  And He assures us that there is hope for the future.   (Rom. 8:31).

For the future, we have the assurance that Jesus has conquered death, hell, and the grave.  Our every enemy has been soundly defeated once and for all!  His mighty resurrection has demonstrated that He is Lord of all!    And in the future, we have the sure and certain promise that our eternity is real and secure in Him!   He has assured us that nothing can separate us from Him!  Not even death!  (Rom.8: 35-39).  Look to Him.  Trust in Him.  Rest in Him.  He is The God of Hope!  We have nothing to fear! 

Rev. James W. Black

“I am the Light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.”

John 8:12 NKJV

 It is difficult to see in the dark.  It is hard to recognize what things are really like in the dark.  The size and shape of things are distorted and hidden by the darkness.  It is difficult to determine exactly where we are in the dark.  It is hard to know the right way to go in the dark.  In the dark everything real is hidden from view.  In the dark, it is easy to become disoriented and confused.  To navigate and function in the dark we must have light.

From the moment that  sin entered our world,  it has been shrouded in darkness. (Gen.3).  Our world is plagued by darkness.  And it is growing darker.  But when Jesus made His entrance into our world,  His Light illuminated the darkness.  Through the Light of His Person and the illumination of His Word,  for the very first time, men were able to see through the darkness!   Jesus is indeed The Light of the World.  His Light has overcome the darkness. That Light still shines today!  It will shine throughout eternity!  (Rev. 21:23).  It will never be extinguished! (John 1: 4-5).

Because of His Light, we can now see what was hidden before.  His Light enables us to know who we really are!   His Light enables us to know where we are.  And His Light enables us to see and know where we are going.  His light enables us to see and to know what is real and what is true.  And His Light enables us to know what is not.

Because He is the Light,   we are now the children of Light! (1 John 1: 5-7).  His Light illuminates our lives and illuminates our path.  Because He is the Light, we do not have to fear the darkness.   All we have to do is to follow Him and we will be able to see everything clearly. 

James W. Black

“Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in the time of need.”

Hebrews 4:16 KJV

The great privilege of the redeemed is that the Holy One,  the God of the Universe, our Heavenly Father, invites us into His Presence!  This privilege is not just for a select few.  No!  It is an invitation for all who have accepted His gift of salvation!  Because of His  Blood that was shed for us, we have been given direct access to His Presence! He invites us to come before Him!   Doing so brings Him great pleasure!   

The evil one seeks to discourage us and prevent us from entering into the Lord’s Presence.   He challenges us by reminding us of our past, declaring that we are not worthy.  He assaults us by reminding us of our weakness and just how little we measure up to God’s standard of Holiness!  He attacks us with guilt, shame, and condemnation. He constantly reminds us of our failures and openly accuses us before God. And if none of those things work, he then distracts us with busyness.  That should tell us just how fearful the adversary is of our entering into the Presence of God! 

But the Lord encourages us to come into His Presence with confidence!  The reason we can have confidence is because He also lived in human flesh just like us!  (Heb. 4:15).   He knows what it means to be human. (Psalm 103:14). He was tempted in the flesh in every possible way just as we are!  But unlike us, He never gave in to the temptation!  He demonstrated to us how to rely upon the Father and the power of the Holy Spirit to face and overcome those temptations. 

The Lord knows that it is in His Presence that we find mercy,  grace, and the forgiveness of our sins!  It is in  His  Presence that we find hope!  It is in  His  Presence that we find comfort.  It is in  His Presence that we experience the richness of His love. It is His Presence that we find joy.  It is in His  Presence that we find peace!  It is in His Presence that we find provision for whatever we may need!  It is in His Presence that we find direction.  It is in His  Presence that we find our identity and purpose. And it is in His Presence that we discover the wonder, mystery, and majesty of His Person!   No wonder the adversary does everything he can to keep us away from Him!

Rev. James W. Black

“…the word of the Lord came unto Abram in a vision saying, ‘Fear not, Abram, I am thy shield and thy exceeding great reward.”

Gen. 15:1 KJV

Abraham’s encounter with God changed everything in his life.  As a result, he left everything to follow God!  (Gen. 12: 1-4).  It was a decision that he never regretted.  Abraham continued to follow God for the rest of his life!  He did not walk perfectly, but he did walk faithfully.  There were times when he made some bad decisions.  Such decisions were made when he relied upon himself rather than seeking God (Gen. 16). And he suffered the consequence of those decisions (Gen. 21:12-21).  But he never quit.  The course of his life was set!  For Abraham, there was no going back!

In Genesis 15 God gave a profound revelation and promise to Abraham.  Abraham would never need to fear those who would oppose him or come against him, for God Himself would be his shield.  God Himself would be his protector.  God Himself would also be his provider.  God Himself would be his greatest reward! 

No one can genuinely follow Jesus without experiencing opposition (John 15:20).  That opposition can be subtle or it can be open and direct.  Open and direct opposition is becoming more common and intense in our culture as our nation continues to abandon God.   But like Abraham, we have nothing to fear!  The Lord told us that such things would happen (Luke 21:17).  But  like Abraham, we can take great comfort in the fact that “the Lord is our shield and our great reward!”  The promise that God made to Abraham also belongs to us, because we are the spiritual children of Abraham.  (Gal. 3:29).

Therefore in an increasingly hostile culture, we do not need to fear.  We are still His light and His witness in a dark world.   He will be “our shield and our great reward!”   He will help us, direct us, and guide us.  He will take care of us no matter what!  And Christ Himself is our greatest reward!   

James W. Black

“I will say of the Lord, he is my refuge and my fortress; my God, in Him will I trust.”

Psalm 91:2

We live in a broken and fallen world. We are constantly reminded of that when we see the daily news.   Each day is filled with the reporting of devastating natural disasters.  On top of that is the endless display of the actions of wicked and sinful people who have no knowledge of God nor any regard for God.

In addition to that is the challenge of daily life.  Ordinary working people struggle to provide the basic necessities for their families.  That struggle is made even harder by a government that intentionally creates inflation through its unsound monetary policies.  Inflation robs people of their labor and their wealth. It forces people to work harder and longer.  But their labor purchases less.  Then there is the challenge of taking care of aging parents,  handicapped children or seriously sick loved ones.   The bottom line is that life is hard!   Often we would like to find a place of escape; a place of refuge that provides safety and gives us a break from the daily grind of life.   

The Good News is that the Lord Jesus has provided us with such a place!  That Place is found in Him!  That place is found in His Presence!  And the Lord invites us into that place!  There is peace there.  There is safety and security there.  There is comfort there.     

In that place, He speaks to us through His Word.  In that place, He strengthens us. In that place, He encourages us. In that place, He guides us and directs us.  In that place we find rest.  In that place we find encouragement.  In that place we find joy!   And in that place we find hope!  In that place, we see everything in light of the eternal.  In that place, we are reminded that everything we are currently facing is only temporary!  We are reminded that life is short and that life in Him and with Him, even now,  is eternal.  Let us rejoice and be thankful that the Lord has provided such a place for us!   He is our refuge!     That is the blessing and the reality of the redeemed! 

“To whom can I speak and give warning? Who will listen to me? Their ears are closed so they cannot hear.  The word of the Lord is offensive to them.  They find no pleasure in it.”

Jeremiah 6:10 NIV 1995 Edition

The people of Israel,  in Jeremiah’s day,  were so caught up in their sinful and rebellious lifestyle that their hearts had become hardened and they completely closed their ears to the Truth of God’s Word!  God had sent His prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and others,  to give them warning after warning of God’s grief over their sin and His impending judgment if they did not repent and turn back to Him.  These warnings went on for several years.  But despite the Word of God being spoken to them again and again and God’s personal dealings with them in sending the remedial judgments of drought, crop failures, pestilence, locusts and defeats at the hands of their enemies, they still refused to hear the Word of the Lord and turn to Him!  They found the Word of the Lord offensive! The reason?  The Word of the Lord exposed their sin!  And they did not want to hear it. 

Just a few weeks ago, a Bible-believing Pastor, Jack Hibbs, of Calvary Chapel in Chino, CA was asked to lead a prayer before the House of Representatives in Washington DC. According to the House Rules, obviously formulated by the liberals and atheists in Congress, you cannot mention, God as Father or mention the Name of Jesus Christ in your prayer.    The pastor went off script and prayed a prayer that acknowledged God, our Heavenly Father,  Jesus as the only Redeemer,  Savior, and Lord and asked for forgiveness for the sins of the nation and reminded those who were making decisions for this nation that one day they would stand before the Judge of all the earth and give an account unto Him for the decisions they make.   The liberals in Congress and the media went ballistic!   They were highly offended by the Truth!  (You can look this up on YouTube). 

The gospel is offensive to those whose hearts have become hardened toward Christ.  It always has been.  It always will be.  But just because people will not hear does not mean that we stop speaking the Truth of Christ!  God still warned Israel, even though they refused to hear.   He did that so that there would be no excuses when the people stood before a Holy God!   So, keep telling the Truth!  It still matters!   

Rev. James W. Black

“What is man that thou art mindful of him?  And the son of man, that thou visitest him?  For thou has made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honor.”

Psalm 8: 4-5  KJV

Have you ever thought about the glory that God gave to man?  It is first mentioned in Gen.  1:26. The glory of man is that he is made in the image of God!  Think of that! Man was created to be the highest expression of God in the earth!  It was God’s intention, from the very beginning,  that the character and nature of God would be expressed in the earth through the life of man! Therefore, man’s glory would be a reflection of God’s glory being manifested in and through him!   

When man sinned against God through willful disobedience,  the Light of God’s glory which flowed from within the spirit of man was extinguished.   Instead of being guided by the Light of God, man would now be living and walking in the darkness of sin. Instead of man being a reflection of God’s glory, man would now reflect the nature of the evil one!  (John 8:44).

But through the power of the cross and the mighty resurrection of Jesus, that glory has been restored!  (Col. 1:27).  Through the New Birth (John 3:16), the Light of God’s glory now illuminates our once darkened spirit and we are able to see and walk in His Light!   We can once again express the image of God in the earth!   

While we may not always express it perfectly (because we have not yet been perfected), we have been re-commissioned to be the expression of God in the earth once again. Just as Jesus came to make the Father visible (Col.1:15), we are now called to make Jesus visible!  What a calling!  What a mystery!  What a glorious thing this is!  May we continually yield to Him and seek to be the fullest expression of  Him we can be! 

Rev. James W. Black

“Therefore to him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it is sin.”

James 4:17 KJV

We live in a culture that has all but lost any consciousness of sin. Because the culture has abandoned Biblical Truth, we have no standard  by which sin can be recognized or identified.  We have become much like it was during the days of The Judges (10th Century BC) when “every man did that  was right in his own eyes.” (Judges 17:6 KJV).   But the Word of God declares  that we “all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.”(Rom. 3:23 KJV).

But what is sin?  How do we define it?  We normally think of sin as doing certain things that are bad.  And  while such  things are certainly sinful, that still does not describe what it is.  In reality sin  is more than our outward actions. (Matthew 5: 27-28).

Major Ian Thomas in his classic book, The Indwelling Life of Christ, defines sin very clearly.  He says, “Sin is anything that falls short of God’s glory, so that God will evaluate sin as any behavior that falls short of what He does, what He says, and what He is.  Sin therefore, is exposed simply by relating our behavior to God’s behavior.  God is perfect and by that perfection you and I recognize sin, because sin is anything that falls short of His perfection.  God Himself is therefore the only standard by which sin is recognizable.” (Page 49). 

Sin, therefore, can only be recognized in the light of God Himself!  In the light of God’s perfect holiness,  we become keenly aware of our imperfection. (Isaiah 6: 1-5).  And we see that anything that is not perfect is sin!  Such a realization means that all of us are in trouble!  We all fall short of God’s Holy perfection!  Such a  revelation of His holiness and perfection, causes us to want to try to hide from His Presence (Gen. 3:8). 

But the Good News of the Gospel is that Jesus has paid for all our sin in full!  (Col. 2: 12-15).  And He has give,  to all who will receive it, His very own righteousness and perfection! (2 Cor.5:21).  Therefore because of His finished work on the cross , He now welcomes all who have received His very own righteousness into His Presence!  And we are completely accepted by Him!  Oh, what a Savior we have in Jesus!