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Amos 8:4-12, Isaiah 12:2-6

Waiting with Hope

Hope is a beautiful thing. Truly medicine to a hurting soul.

Life is hard and sometimes we make it more difficult. The passage in Amos points to a people making life harder than it has to be with wicked ways. Because we serve a God of justice, He cannot bless their wickedness and says some of the most chilling words in Scripture:  I will send a famine . . . of the words of the Lord on the land (Amos 8:11). He is saying:If My people will not listen to Me, I will stop talking. God tells His people they will search for Him…wander the land looking for Him. But, He won’t be found.

The book of Isaiah reads like many of the other prophetic books in Scripture: an assessment of the current state of the people and their sin, judgment for that sin…and hope. Isaiah 12 rejoices in that hope. Isaiah 11:1-5 describes our hope:

There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit. And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. And his delight shall be in the fear of the Lord. He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide disputes by what his ears hear, but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth; and he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked. Righteousness shall be the belt of his waist, and faithfulness the belt of his loins.

When life is hard . . . whether you are contributing to the pain or not, you have hope. His name is Jesus. Rest and rejoice in the hope of Jesus.

-Kelly Borst