Our Blog

Worship August 2018

Church Family,

Fall is quickly approaching, and I know we’re all ready for some cooler air. It’s been an exciting season of ministry here at Oakhill, and we are excited to see what God is going to do as we press forward into the future. This month I want to ask a question and encourage you to ponder with it: How do you worship in hard times? In hard times and hard seasons of life, do you inch closer to God, or do you lean further away from God? I think we can all agree that it’s easy to worship when things are going well. But when things aren’t going well, sometimes our worship of God is more absent from our lives than present. I want to encourage us all to remain faithful in our worship, in every season, just as God remains  faithful to us at all times.

Psalms 46:1-3 says, “God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea.” The reality is that there are only two times in our lives when we should worship God - when we feel like it, and when we don’t. What we need to understand is that even in the hardest of times, God is just as faithful as He is in the good times. He’s always the same God, never changing. So many times we wrestle with the idea that because we have fallen on hard times, God’s love for us has altered, or we start to think that He somehow has changed. But the reality is that He has not changed, but we have changed. Our hearts have changed. Our hearts have become cold and distant because our lives haven’t gone exactly how we planned for them to go. We have to trust that God’s plans for us are far better than the plans we can make on our own. God doesn’t lead us to the fire, He leads us through the fire.

So this week, be encouraged to worship God even in the hard times. Don’t hide from God. If you’re sad, bring your feelings to Him in prayer. If you’re angry, tell Him. If you’re lonely, tell Him. Whatever your trials may be, bring them before God, as He already knows them very well. He is our Perfect Creator, and our Good Father. He knows you and He loves you. We can be comforted in the middle of a storm, because we know the maker of the storm, and He knows us. A great worship leader, Aaron Keyes once said, “Worship is like breathing, it’s something we were constantly created to do.” So lean in. In the good and the bad, lean into the presence of God. There’s nothing quite like it.

In Christ,

Jared

Spiritual Development August 2018

What is Biblical Hope?

We use the word hope in a variety of ways. Sometimes it connotes a wish about something over which we have no control at all. We say, “I sure hope the train comes soon,” or, “I hope it doesn’t rain on the day of the picnic.” These are wishes for things, but we wouldn’t bank on them. The word hope also depicts what we think should happen. We say, “I hope he will choose to be honest this time,” or, “I hope the judge brings down a guilty verdict.” Here hope reveals an internal sense of morality or justice. We also use hope in a motivational sense. We say, “I did this in the hope that it would pay off in the end,” or, “I got married in the hope that he would treat me in marriage the way he treated me in courtship.” All of this is to say that because the word hope is used in a variety of ways, it is important for us to understand how this word is used in Scripture or in its gospel sense. Biblical hope is foundationally more than a faint wish for something.

Biblical hope is deeper than moral expectation, although it includes that. Biblical hope is more than a motivation for a choice or action, although it is that as well. So what is biblical hope? It is a  confident expectation of a guaranteed result that changes the way you live. Let’s pull this definition apart.

First, biblical hope is confident. It is confident because it is not based on your wisdom, faithfulness, or power, but on the awesome power, love, faithfulness, grace, patience, and wisdom of God. Because God is who he is and will never, ever change, hope in him is hope well placed and secure.

Hope is also an expectation of a guaranteed result. It is being sure that God will do all that he has planned and promised to do. You see, his promises are only as good as the extent of his rule, but since he rules everything everywhere, I know that resting in the promises of his grace will never leave me empty and embarrassed. I may not understand what is happening and I may not know what is coming around the corner, but I know that God does and that he controls it all. So even when I am confused, I can have hope, because my hope does not rest on my understanding, but on God’s   goodness and his rule.

Finally, true hope changes the way you live. When you have hope that is guaranteed, you live with confidence and courage that you would otherwise not have. That confidence and courage cause you to make choices of faith that would seem foolish to someone who does not have your hope. If you’re God’s child, you never have to live hopelessly, because hope has invaded your life by grace, and his name is Jesus!