Hope

I hardly know what to write. There is so much going on in so many places it is difficult to try and take it all in. All of it is as the scriptures foretold it would be… life out of death, joy out of pain, peace out of confusion. Our whole existence is becoming other worldly and is only made sensible from a heavenly perspective.

The older I become the more I know there is a realm that no natural mind can penetrate, nor human understanding comprehend and none but those with spiritual eyes can see into it. What is more startling is that we get to live in it… now. The more we are brought by pain and suffering into that heavenly realm the less we will appear just “human”. Nothing we do or believe will be “normal”.

Yet all that we are and all that we stand for, rest on one single event in human history being true. The resurrection of Christ.

We who believe have risked everything on that being more than just a beautiful hope.

I have heard it said that even if none of the supernatural events surrounding Christ’s life really took place …. He was still a wise and good man, contributing more to humankind than any other.

With that I most ardently disagree and nothing could be further from the truth. I believe that if Christ was not raised from the dead as He foretold; then He was the cruelest of deluded human beings and we His followers have been sorely deceived into following His religious madness.

Paul the apostle agreed.

And if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is empty and your faith is also empty. Yes, and we are found false witnesses of God, because we have testified of God that He raised up Christ, whom He did not raise up—if in fact the dead do not rise. For if the dead do not rise, then Christ is not risen. And if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins! Then also those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men the most pitiable.          (1Co 15:14-19)

Hope is a wonderful gift. It is the lifter of sorrow, the great defense against despair. To those who have been warmed by its promises it is like the rising of the sun after enduring the cold chill of a dark and moonless winter night.

Yet if hope remains just hope, no matter how beautiful it appears or uplifting it can feel; it is immoral and degrading. Hope must, at some point, yield the realization of what that hope has promised or it is but a cruel, wicked enticement to continue in self deception.

Then the question must be asked… how can I know that hope can deliver what it promises? If I have to wait to see resurrection life till after I die, I don’t know if I could continue to believe hope’s promise while living in a world so full of disappointment and death.

But for us whose hope is rooted in faith… we needn’t wait.

I can see the promises of hope revealed in the resurrection life of Christ presently being revealed in His children. I have seen Aubry, Mary the priestess and even now Shammah showing it this side of the vale.

Watching my little Aubry receive the substance of resurrection life was incredible. It came before she left. That which is dreaded and comes to all men came not unto her. The fear of death and the unknown was never allowed in her hospital room for any of the four days of her passing. It was the beginning of our Father removing the fear of death in all of us in Geneva Florida. We got to actually taste the evidence of resurrection Life on this side of the vale. And that taste continues.

In the last 2 weeks, we have seen the horrors of “death and separation” defeated by Mary and her family who received in their hearts the same substance that Aubry did. I remember seeing it in Joy when Lynn left and seeing it again throughout the entire Village when Gamal crossed over.

Yet reading Shammah’s blogs and emails I see something of a progression in the revealing of what that hope has promised. More than even what I experienced in Aubry’s passing.



Our precious brother is not just enduring with courage the rigors of acute sickness and the threat of death and he has not just been delivered from the fear of death. By the hope of the resurrection of Christ he is ridiculing them.

Death has no hold on Shammah, no inevitability. Death’s ability to take captives has been conquered by faith in resurrection life and soon death’s power will be broken.

Oh, the benefits of following Christ; they are so immense and we are loaded with them. Hope in Christ can deliver not only from the fear of death but from death itself!

You have ascended on high, You have led captivity captive; …. Blessed be the Lord, Who daily loads us with benefits, The God of our salvation! Selah. Our God is the God of salvation; and to GOD the Lord belong escapes from death. (Psalm 68:18-20)