Hope

Sons and Daughters of God – Hugh Binning

Is there any privilege so precious as this, to be the sons of God (1 John 3:2)? What are all the relations, or states, or conditions to this one, to be the children of the Highest? It was David’s question, “Should I be the king’s son-in-law?” Alas! What a petty and poor dignity compared with this, to be the sons of God, partakers of a divine nature!

– Hugh Binning –
from the book Christian Love
1627-1653

Led Into the Wilderness – FB Meyer

The Lord himself was led up into the wilderness. And in one form or another, every soul who has done a great work in the world has passed through similar periods of obscurity, suffering, disappointment, or solitude.

– FB Meyer –

Have a Prospect of the Journey’s End – Matthew Henry

It is pleasant in a journey to have a prospect of the journey’s end—to see that the way we are in leads directly to it, and to see that it cannot be far off; every step we take is so much nearer it, nay, and we are within a few steps of it we have a prospect of being shortly with Christ in Paradise; yet a little while, and we shall be at home, we shall be at rest, and whatever difficulties we may meet with in our way, when we come to heaven all will be well—eternally well.

– Matthew Henry –
from The Pleasantness of a Religious Life, 1714

Talk of God’s Goodness – Charles Spurgeon

If you abundantly talk of God’s goodness, you are sure to benefit your neighbors. Many are comforted when they hear of God’s goodness to their friends.

– Charles Spurgeon –
from Spurgeon on Praise

Kids Throughout the Decades – Ravi Zacharias

In the 1950s kids lost their innocence. They were liberated from their parents by well-paying jobs, cars, and lyrics in music that gave rise to a new term—the generation gap.

In the 1960s, kids lost their authority. It was a decade of protest—church, state, and parents were all called into question and found wanting. Their authority was rejected, yet nothing ever replaced it.

In the 1970s, kids lost their love. It was the decade of me-ism dominated by hyphenated words beginning with self. Self-image, Self-esteem, Self-assertion. … It made for a lonely world. Kids learned everything there was to know about sex and forgot everything there was to know about love, and no one had the nerve to tell them there was a difference.

In the 1980s, kids lost their hope. Stripped of innocence, authority and love and plagued by the horror of a nuclear nightmare, large and growing numbers of this generation stopped believing in the future.

In the 1990s kids lost their power to reason. Less and less were they taught the very basics of language, truth, and logic and they grew up with the irrationality of a postmodern world.

In the new millennium, kids woke up and found out that somewhere in the midst of all this change, they had lost their imagination. Violence and perversion entertained them till none could talk of killing innocents since none was innocent anymore.

– Ravi Zacharias –