Hart's Memories - Post 3

So I, Hart, have been cleaning up my Google Reader (deleting blogs I no longer read, or blogs that people no longer update, etc) and I came across 2 blogs I had actually forgotten about because they haven't been updated in forever. What a punk right? Start a blog, post some decent things, and then never update it again. Lame. Oh but wait. Those 2 blogs were blogs I started and never kept up with! Actually most of the posts in them are not that good, but there were a couple that I thought would be fun if over the next coming days I post (or I guess re-post) them for you to read. For my first post, click here.

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Hope?
(Originally Posted on January 19, 2009)

First, I am excited that someone other than a white man has become president. Last night I was watching the news, and they were doing a story on people who were coming from around the US for Obama’s inauguration. One of the people that came was a black man who was from Louisanna, and was 100 years old. He has seen and been through a lot of racisim. While they were interviewing him, he was crying and thanking the Lord for allowing him to see the day that a black man became president. I couldn’t help but be excited along with him. There is no doubt that our country has been gripped by the sin of racism ever since it’s birth. So we should praise the Lord that He has allowed a new milestone to be reached. But of course, if you read my previous post, you’ll know that though I’m excited about a black person becoming president, I’m not excited about the person who is becoming president. Anyways, I’m not going to spend time on that issue.

My next point is the issue of hope. I’m sure you’ve seen that famous picture by now of Obama and the word “HOPE” written across the bottom. People desperately want to be saved. So they’re putting their hope in Obama. Going back to that piece I saw on the news last night: another woman is a mother of something like 6 or 7 kids. They live in Chicago in a tiny apartment, and don’t have very much. But this woman so desperately wants Obama to be her Savior, that for the last few months she has been saving up a few thousand dollars so that she and her kids could go to DC for the inaguration. In the media’s eyes, that’s a great story to report on. But in reality, that is just sad. That mother is throwing away money, that her family needs, to go see smoke and mirrors. They may be satisfied, entertained and comforted at first, but at some point Obama is going to let her down, and without her hope only in Chrsit Jesus, her soul is still going to be starving.

My heart aches every time I see that picture. This country is mocking God with this picture. We are mocking God. I Thessalonians 1:3 clearly reminds us that we should only have a “steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ”. God tells us through the prophet Isaiah (2:22) to “stop regarding man, whose breath of life is in his nostrils. For why should he be esteemed?” Or, in the words of The Message (I really like how it puts it…) “Quit scraping and fawning over mere humans; so full of themselves, so full of hot air! Can’t you see there’s nothing to them?”


We were created to worship God. One way we worship Him is to put our hope in Him, and His promises He has made to us. But because of sin, we screw up and put our hope in “mere men”, and the promises they make. First, that is sinful, and despicable in the eyes of God. Second, because they are “mere men”, they and their promises WILL fail us.

Finally, Christian, how are you responding to this? We should be so saddened to see how our country, and fellow countrymen are running to a mere man for salvation. It should upset us so much that we are more than willing to speak out about the error of their ways…even if we will face persecution. Remember, “For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” (I Corinthians 1:18)

I pray the Lord will use the words from this hymn to encourage you:

My Hope is Built (The Solid Rock)


My hope is built on nothing less
Than Jesus’ blood and righteousness.
I dare not trust the sweetest frame,
But wholly trust in Jesus’ Name.


On Christ the solid Rock I stand,
All other ground is sinking sand;
All other ground is sinking sand.


When darkness seems to hide His face,
I rest on His unchanging grace.
In every high and stormy gale,
My anchor holds within the veil.


On Christ the solid Rock I stand,
All other ground is sinking sand;
All other ground is sinking sand.


His oath, His covenant, His blood,
Support me in the whelming flood.
When all around my soul gives way,
He then is all my Hope and Stay.


On Christ the solid Rock I stand,
All other ground is sinking sand;
All other ground is sinking sand.


When He shall come with trumpet sound,
Oh may I then in Him be found.
Dressed in His righteousness alone,
Faultless to stand before the throne.


On Christ the solid Rock I stand,
All other ground is sinking sand;
All other ground is sinking sand.