Coffee Cup Confessions: Finding Hope Not Hype in Famous Bible VersesНамуна

Hope vs. Hype

I have a confession I'm about to make that 95% of you will be offended right off the bat. Are you ready? I hate coffee. I don't drink it. I'm sorry if that makes me weird or if you lost all your trust in me. This is just who I am.

So, I don't drink out of coffee mugs or coffee cups too often. But, I noticed a trend back in the day. When I would go to a Christian bookstore, there were a lot of Bible verses featured on coffee mugs. They were meant to give us hope and encouragement. So, maybe today, they would be some of the most shared memes or verse images on social media.

But I think a side effect has happened. I think the coffee cup bible verses have revealed something about our society. We only want the positive. I'm concerned that some of even the most well-known recited Bible verses; if all we use them for is hype or a momentary respite, then they are falling short of the goal of giving you what God wants you to have. He wants you to have genuine, long-lasting hope.

There's a big difference between hype and hope.

Hype is often a big exaggerated statement that has no substance.

Hope in Christ isn't based on exaggeration but rather on the certainty of His truth.

Hype fades, but hope is forever.

I'll admit, it's kind of fun to get hyped up. But, regarding our faith, we don't need a locker room speech to hype us up. We aren't playing a game. God wants us to have more than a moment of hype in this world. Instead, he wants us to have real hope that no matter what we are going through, we can place our trust in Him and His finished work on the cross. Every mental health expert agrees on how important hope is in the battle to win the war in our minds. Hope helps us see beyond our current circumstances to something better despite whatever feelings we might have at the moment.

There's a battle in our minds and in the world. When you experience tough things in your world or outer circumstances that don't match the inward reality that you know in Christ, it doesn't mean you have to jump to God has abandoned me, forgotten me, and I have no way out of this. This is where a lot of our minds can so quickly go. And this is where the enemy wants to take your mind.

So, in this short, action-packed bible plan, I want to show you how many of the classic Bible phrases that we know, love, memorize, and plaster on coffee cups were earned and learned. They weren't written in the good times but in times of adversity. These verses were not written when bank accounts were full, jobs were secure, and economies were strong. Instead, they were written in moments of uncertainty, great difficulty, and extreme adversity.

So, welcome to Coffee Cup Confessions: Finding Hope, not Hype.

I've got five verses we display loudly and proudly, share on socials, and drink from our coffee mugs that I want to explore. So we are going to re-enter back into the moments to see the context in which these famous Bible verses were written. If God can pen some powerful words through our brothers and sisters in Christ in the difficult times, so too can we have hope today that this God will continue to see us through no matter what we may face in this world.

As we start the journey together, read through some hope-filled Bible verses today.