{"id":1543,"date":"2012-12-23T01:00:29","date_gmt":"2012-12-23T06:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kspministries.org\/wordpress\/?p=1543"},"modified":"2012-12-23T01:06:06","modified_gmt":"2012-12-23T06:06:06","slug":"prayer-teaching-12-23-2012","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.kspministries.org\/wordpress\/2012\/12\/23\/prayer-teaching-12-23-2012\/","title":{"rendered":"Prayer Teaching 12-23-2012"},"content":{"rendered":"

HOPE IN PRAYER<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

This is the week we celebrate Christmas, the birth of our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, the hope of the world.<\/p>\n

In our modern world, especially in the time which we find ourselves living today, hope seems to be such a lost cause for many.\u00a0 Economic downturns, jobs lost, marriages on the rocks, children having no futures, people murdered, wars and rumors of wars, natural disasters are the headlines of the day.\u00a0 What is the use of hope in such a dark world?\u00a0 Is there hope?\u00a0 Where are we headed?\u00a0 The Bible tells us that hope deferred makes the heart sick.\u00a0 There are many today whose hearts are sick and not whole.<\/p>\n

Many will say that the next statement I make is trite and useless.\u00a0 But here\u2019s the bottom line:\u00a0 worldly hope produces nothing but heartache because it is dependent upon circumstances.\u00a0 Hope in God produces expectancy because it is dependent on God Who never fails.\u00a0 He is bigger than economies.\u00a0 He is bigger than death.\u00a0 He is bigger than divorce.\u00a0 He is bigger than natural disasters.\u00a0 He is bigger than wars.\u00a0 He is bigger than anything you can see here in the negative.\u00a0 God is bigger!\u00a0 God is a good God!\u00a0 We can hope in Him.<\/p>\n

Where is your hope today?\u00a0 Without hope in God, there is no faith.\u00a0 Without faith, prayer produces nothing.\u00a0 Hope is not wishful thinking, hoping something will happen.\u00a0 Godly hope is a white-hot expectation, based on the Word of God, that God is in charge, and everything is going to be alright.<\/p>\n

This Godly hope is not based on what you do or don\u2019t do.\u00a0 It is based on God.\u00a0 It is not dependent on you.\u00a0 It is dependent on God.\u00a0 It is knowing that He is in charge, and He will hold you up, regardless of what you encounter in this life, whether it is good or bad.<\/p>\n

In the end, Godly hope will produce results.\u00a0 All we have to do is look at Abraham in the Bible.\u00a0 For 25 years he had an earthly hope, based upon what he and Sarah could produce as an heir.\u00a0 Then we are told in Romans 4:18 that against earthly hope Abraham believed in Godly hope that he might become the father of many nations.\u00a0 We know the rest of the story.\u00a0 Within the year he and Sarah had a baby boy born to them as a result of their union in their old age—-an impossible situation because they were too old to conceive.<\/p>\n

But God——————!\u00a0 God is the factor in our equation of hope always.\u00a0 Without Him, there is no hope, only artificial clouds of expectancy that evaporate as quickly as they were formed.\u00a0 People go from one worldly hope to another, never quite satisfied, never quite achieving the peace of knowing all is well.\u00a0 On the other hand, Godly hope produces a sense that all is well.\u00a0 We can truly say shalom, all is well, nothing is missing and nothing is broken.\u00a0 That is what the prayer of Godly hope produces.<\/p>\n

MERRY CHRISTMAS!\u00a0 HOPE IN THE ONE WHO WAS BORN TO GIVE YOU HOPE!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

HOPE IN PRAYER This is the week we celebrate Christmas, the birth of our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, the hope of the world. In our modern world, especially in the time which we find ourselves living today, hope seems to be such a lost cause for many.\u00a0 Economic downturns, jobs lost, marriages on the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[9],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kspministries.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1543"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kspministries.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kspministries.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kspministries.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kspministries.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1543"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.kspministries.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1543\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1759,"href":"http:\/\/www.kspministries.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1543\/revisions\/1759"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kspministries.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kspministries.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kspministries.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}