Your Enemy and Your Hope

Your enemy has a name. Your hope has a name. Your enemy is Satan and your hope is Jesus.

We get confused often and label things other than these things as our enemy or our hope. We often call created things our hope or we call created things our enemy.

Maybe this will help to explain what I mean. I have a great wife, great kids, great friends and a great church family. None of those things are my hope. Many times I act like they are my hope. When I say my hope, I mean thing that I trust in to give me happiness or peace. Sometimes they succeed in giving those things. When they fail to provide or when they do not provide, they can become my enemy. They are an enemy because they are blocking my happiness.

But my wife, my kids, my friend and my church are all created things. They are all great things. They are all great things that were created to give glimpses of the beauty, care, love and so much more about the majesty of our God. When we see them as such and engage them as such, we are truly worshiping and growing in knowledge and affection for God. When we see them as our hope, they will fail us and leave us alone.

Make no mistake, God intends for you to be in rich community with both Himself and with people. Satan on the other hand intends for you to be alone with feeling of darkness and despair.

In my Insurance job, there is a political inner office battle going on in the midst of our board of directors. The winner of this battle directly affects my ability to do my job well and succeed. There are clear people that are on my team and clear people that are against me. Neither group of people are my hope or my enemy. Both groups of people can, when placed in proper perspective lead me to worship.

Look at any created thing, it is neither your hope nor your enemy. It is created by God to be seized as an opportunity to grasp His beauty, creativity, poetry, love and care for you.

There are a couple of Psalms that I read this morning that give me peace. May they give you peace today as well. Psalm 40 and Psalm 46.