I Quit!

Christian friend, who has given you permission to give up hope? Does God no longer hear your prayers? Does He no longer care? Has He given up on His people? Oh, I speak as one who has gone crazy! Of course:

• He hears!
• He cares!
• He delivers!
• Friends hope on!

The noted commentator, William Barclay, once said: “The Christian hope is not simply a trembling hesitant hope that perhaps the promises of God may be true. It is a confident expectation that they cannot be anything else but true!”
 
David therefore wrote in Psalms 42:11: “Why are you downcast, O
my soul?Why (are you) so disturbed within me? PUT YOUR HOPE IN GOD....”

• I can almost see David shaking himself here.
• He is talking to his soul and giving it a tongue-lashing.
• He is rebuking the doubt and the despair that had crept into his heart.
• He then prescribes for himself the remedy --- hope in THE GOD OF HOPE!

 
In recounting his experiences as a political prisoner in Russia, the late Alexander Solzhenitsyn told of a moment when he was on the verge of giving up all hope. He was forced to work 12 hours a day at hard labor while existing on a starvation diet, and he had become gravely ill. The doctors were predicting his death. One afternoon, while shoveling sand under a blazing sun, he simply stopped working. He did so even though he knew the guards would beat him severely -- perhaps to death. But he felt that he just couldn't go on. Then he saw another prisoner, a fellow Christian, moving toward him cautiously. With his cane the man quickly drew a cross in the sand and erased it. In that brief moment, Solzhenitsyn felt all of the hope of the gospel flood through his soul. It gave him courage to endure that difficult day and the months of imprisonment that followed.

• Ours is not a vain hope,
• a pretentious hope,
• or a presumptuous hope.
• Ours is a hope that is grounded in the sure work of God through His Son on the tree two-thousand years ago. 

The song writer wrote, “My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness.”
Yes, we have hope because our hope is in Christ!
 
Whenever you are tempted to quit; to give up hope:

• Look to the Cross. 
• Look to Jesus and to the victory that He won there. 
• Look to His Holy Word and to the wonderful and faithful promises that He has given to you each and every one of us who serve Him.

 
Then too, please remember these words found in Jeremiah 29:11: “For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the LORD, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
 
Don’t quit -- hope!

The Redeemed Team