Unswerving Hope, Unfailing Love: Advent DevotionalSample

Day 1: Unswerving Hope

There are times when maintaining hope seems illogical and a waste of time. To raise your hands in surrender to despair and to bury the hope that fuels your agony is the temptation of the heart.

Whether the precise desire of your heart will be fulfilled or not, I do not know. If you keep your heart in what you are waiting for, your heart will be empty and afflicted, but if you keep your heart in the one in whom all the promises have already been fulfilled, your heart will be hopeful in life.

Our hope is alive, and we must always keep it alive. That hope came in the form of a child in a manger and His words are faithful and true. God has fulfilled all the promises that we need by sending His son for us and fulfilling them in this way: company, comfort, peace, love, victory, strength, help, refuge and much more.

Our response to those promises and to our living hope must always be a strong - "Amen!" - that rises to God for His glory. So perhaps today, it is necessary for you that with shovel in hand, you rescue your buried dreams and bring them to the hope we have in Christ.

If His promises are faithful, then we will keep our hope alive in Him only. If God has responded with a "Yes" to the promises in Christ, I will live by responding with a firm "Amen" to each of those situations that challenge my hope.