Dear Hope family,

Thought for the Week

Values at Hope – Living by God’s Word!

Matthew 28v20 “Teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.”

Over the next 5 weeks, we will be reflecting our five core values as a family at Hope. When we make any decision, we prioritise one thing over another, and so exercise our “values” – what is most important to us. For example, when we purchase something, we may choose either better quality or better price, or we may choose better looks or better function. The values we live by develop during our upbringing and by our lessons of life.

Hope’s first value is to live according to God’s Word in our daily lives. This is very difficult in a society which prefers to take our own way over submission to another. Jesus stood out from the crowd because he submitted to his Heavenly Father: culminating in Gethsemane as he simply said “Not my will but yours be done.” He now calls us to submit in a similar way to what God says.

God is not looking for reluctant submission, but a willing one. How is this possible? Only by a change in our heart, by our desires being realigned. Our heart’s desires are changed by being “Born again”, allowing God’s Spirit to work in us, and allowing our heart to be changed by God’s Word as we meditate on it. We also need to actually take the practical steps of obedience. Repeated practical steps change our way of thinking.

If we value what God says over what the world says, we will allow God more space to speak than the world. As our familiarity with what He says grows, so his words become second-nature to us. This all leads, not to a reluctant submission, but a willing submission. And at the end of the day, His ways are always best.

Do you dare to ask God for a heart that willingly submits to the ways of God even if it means going to the cross like Jesus?

With love and blessing,

Roland