Dear Hope family,

Thought for the Week

The result of prayer to God!

Daniel 9v3-4, 10v12-13  “So I turned to the Lord God and pleaded with him in prayer and petition, in fasting and in sackcloth and ashes. I prayed to the LORD my God and confessed … [He replied], “Since the day that you set your mind to gain understanding and to humble yourself before God, your words were heard, and I have come in response to them. But the prince of the Persian kingdom resisted me 21 days.”

There are several things we can notice Daniel’s prayer recorded in Daniel chapter 9:

• It was based on his familiarity with what God had said in the Bible (see v1-2).
• It was with passion (note the pleading and fasting etc above)
• It was with humility (note the confession above)
• It was answered, but not immediately and not in the way Daniel may have expected
• Answering it involved some shifting of spiritual powers in the heavenly realms.

What stirs you to passion in prayer?

The apostle Paul finishes his list of “spiritual armour” in Ephesians 6 with “And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests.” Put Daniel and Paul together and we see that God is able to secure spiritual victory, but he often only does it in response to our prayers.

Are you passionate for spiritual victory in your life, in the life of our church, in the life of those around us? There is one place to go and seek that victory.

May God fire a passion in our prayer.

With love and blessing,

Roland

Dear Hope family,

Thought for the Week

This is the end of the matter!

Daniel 7v27  “Then the sovereignty, power and greatness of the kingdoms under the whole heaven will be handed over to the saints, the people of the Most High. His kingdom will be an everlasting kingdom, and all rulers will worship and obey him. This is the end of the matter.”

I love that “this is the end of the matter”!

In our world there are various sovereignties, powers and ‘greatnesses’ – whether in the political realms of nations and international groupings; the empires of global business and media; or the kingdoms of philosophy and learning.

In the preceding verses, God has outlined to Daniel in a vision the rise and fall of various kingdoms. In the context the verse specifically relates to Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece and Rome, but in practice the message can be applied to any age and any world power: they may be powerful and they may do what is wrong, but do not fear because God is the ultimate sovereign. He is going to bring all such powers before his “court” (v26) where he will exercise his authority and remove their power for ever.

The power and authority that will last for ever is Christ’s authority and you and I belong to His kingdom. In this we have hope, and in this we have a message for our community.

With love and blessing,

Roland

Dear Hope family,

Thought for the Week

PrisonsWeek

Luke 4v18 “The Spirit of the Lord is on me … to proclaim freedom for the prisoners.”

This “Prisons week” charity leads a week of prayer for Prisons this week each year. Prisons week website

Our society can tend to consider those who are prisoners to be “scum”. As Christians, we recognize all prisoners to be people made in the image of God. We recognize that while many have done horrendous crimes, others may be there as miscarriages of justice or because of the way experiences have shaped them. But, whatever the reason, they each need the mercy of God and God loves each one and sent Jesus to save the lost. In Christ, he is able to forgive all their sin and crime and bring them into a wonderful relationship with Jesus.

Let’s this pray this evening for those who are in prison at present. Let’s pray for those Christian chaplains and others who are running Alpha courses and introducing prisoners to Jesus. There are incredible stories of prison conversions – let’s pray for God to pour out his Spirit on our prisons. Let’s pray too for wisdom for all those running prisons. Let’s pray for organisations such as Yellow Ribbon here in Telford who are seeking to support those coming out of prison.

For some prison is a physical reality, for others it is a metaphorical reality in their lives. The image of prison is used in scripture of our spiritual condition where we are held by Satan and his powers. May God bring spiritual release and freedom for us and many in our community.

With love and blessing,

Roland

Dear Hope family,

Thought for the Week

Growing Love

Hebrews 10v24 “Let us consider how we may spur one another on towards love and good deeds.”

A community cannot last long without some love. The Bible word “love” (“agape” in Greek) is about a care for someone that causes you to seek their interest rather than yours. It has a willingness to sacrifice oneself in order to enhance someone else. We see it supremely in God’s love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

I want to highlight the following from the above verse from Hebrews:

• “towards love” – Love is something we are to continue to move towards. Grow in it. Is this something we are continuing to move towards or have we become stagnant?
• “spur one another on” – We can encourage one another to love more. We do this as we share about what Jesus has done; as we show by example what real love means; as we share stories of others showing love; as we help one another to see the opportunities there are to practice it. Do we make it our intention to encourage others in this?
• “Let us consider how …” It is worth thinking about and meditating on. How often do we do this?

May we each know the love of Christ flowing into us and out of us day by day.

With love and blessing,

Roland

Dear Hope family,

Thought for the Week

Growing Hope

Hebrews 6v19 “We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure.”

We might say about something in the future “I hope so”. It can be an expression of desire without necessarily a high level of confidence. Christian hope is quite different: it is a firm and secure anchor which stops us from drifting in the ocean of life. This is confirmed in Hebrews 11v1 where faith is defined as being “sure of what we hope for.” Christian hope is therefore not only a positive view but also a certain view.

What is this hope? It is that Jesus Christ is now in the presence of God in the heavenly realms and is welcoming us in (see Hebrews 8-10). Our hope is not in the things of this world. We have so much – even the poorest of us have a lot. But as we look around the world we see that many Christians have nothing of this world: they face persecutions and sufferings, imprisonments and death. If our hope is the same hope as theirs, then it cannot be in the things of this world – either material, relational, academic or political ….

Our hope is in the heavenly realms where Jesus is right now. He has won victory on the cross; he is now implementing that victory, one soul at a time; and he is going to achieve full victory over evil on his return. This is an anchor for your soul, your inner self, the real you! It is a hope which overflows in love, joy and peace. Peace because we know what really matters is going to work out well as we are on Christ’s side; joy because we have so much in Christ and so much to look forward to; and love because this is all because He loved us and he pours out his love in our hearts.

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow with hope! (Romans 15v13).

With love and blessing,

Roland

Dear Hope family,

Thought for the Week

Growing Maturity

Hebrews 6v1 “Therefore let us leave the elementary teachings about Christ and go on to maturity …”

We are familiar with the process and benefits of maturing – whether it is a bottle of fine wine or a person. To quote Wikipedia “As a wine starts to mature, its bouquet will become more developed and multi-layered.” The good news for us Christians is that we mature like that wine.

So I must ask myself as a follower of Christ, “Am I staying where I started, or am I developing?” It takes no special situation to grow older, but it takes the right environment to mature well: wine is best matured in a dark, cool environment. In contrast, a Christian is best matured in a light, warm environment – the light of the truth of Christ and the warmth of the love of Christ.

So I ask myself, “Am I placing myself in the right environment?” Of course, you and I face difficult natural environments, but that is not the point. It is our spiritual environment that brings maturity. How does this work? As we marinade in the truth and love of Christ, our hearts and minds are transformed. We marinade in His truth and love as we meditate on His Word, dwell in prayer, soak in worship.

But there is more, because real maturity is achieved as we then exercise that new spiritual life in the challenging situations we naturally face. This lesson is clear with respect to Jesus: “he learned obedience from what he suffered.” (Hebrews 5v8). It is not that Jesus was previously disobedient (see Luke 2v51), but that the real depth of obedience is learned when you submit to do something you really do not want to do.

May the Lord, in his grace, enable you and I to move on to spiritual maturity.

With love and blessing,

Roland

Dear Hope family,

Thought for the Week

Growing Obedience

Hebrews 5v8 “Though he was a son, he learned obedience from what he suffered.”

Obedience is not doing what someone says when you want to do it anyway.

Obedience is doing what someone says when you want to do something different. It is allowing the will of someone in authority to override our own.

Obedience to God grows as we become used to doing things God’s way not our way.

In this verse, we read that Jesus “learned obedience”. When he was in heaven with the Father, I imagine that they never thought differently from each other. When Jesus was on earth and faced with the suffering he was about to go through, he pleaded with God to take it from him, but then prayed “not my will, but your will.” It was not that Jesus ever disobeyed God the Father previously, but that the real clincher of obedience was whether he was going to do what His Father wanted despite the cost to him personally.

So it is for us. What are the tests of obedience in your life today? Are you learning obedience even in the midst of difficulty? Are you more likely to obey God now than you were back in 2020?

May the Lord grow our obedience so that we may be like Christ.

With love and blessing,

Roland

Dear Hope family,

Thought for the Week

Growing Faith

2 Thessalonians 1v3 “Your faith is growing more and more.’”

As my 80 year old father sat in his harness at the top of a Zip wire in Snowdonia yesterday, he could have backed out. He could have looked down at the huge drop below and think, “that is dangerous, I stand no chance, what if ….” . Or, he could look up at the thick wire, the careful assembly of his harness and carabiners, the testimony of those who have gone before, and decide to entrust himself to these things. When the gate opened, he could either lift his feet and go, or stay where he was.

Faith is not something static, but something that grows like a muscle. A successful journey down one zip wire, builds faith to do it again.

Paul commends the Thessalonians for their growing faith. If you are walking with God, it is natural that your faith must also be growing. Why? Because the more you experience of Him, the more you trust Him and find Him trustworthy, then, the more your faith in Him grows.

How can we tell whether our faith has grown? We can tell by the way we react to what goes on in the world around us and our willingness to do what God tells us in His Word. When someone hurts me, am I more likely to forgive them than I used to be? When things go wrong, am I more likely to persevere than I used to be? As we saw on Sunday, Joseph’s ability to persevere against the equally persevering difficulties and to forgive his malicious brothers, rested on his knowledge and experience of God: God who is both the ultimate judge and the One who brings about what is good, even in evil. This is spiritual maturity.

When the disciples were challenged about forgiveness, they asked, “Lord increase our faith.” (Luke 17v5) Jesus replied, “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the see,’ and it will obey you.” You only need just enough faith to speak or act. May God give you that faith today.

With love and blessing,

Roland