Lovelace Shabbat table. It is set early so we all begin to prepare our hearts and know it is almost here. Lets get ready for Shabbat!
Such an opportunity to celebrate our relationship with our Father. This is for the whole family to come together to sing, dance, study, pray, get blessings and spend time together. We have a CD that we play that has some of our favorite songs and blessings and it has become very familiar to us that we can sing and dance with the words and music. It has become part of our Shabbat.. Blessing and Shabbat Shalom.
Below is the continuation of the Sukkot teaching. Part Three of Six
Dreams fulfilled is a tree of life
Proverbs 13:12 Hope deferred ( Drawn out) maketh the heart sick: but [when] the desire ( desire, wish, longings of one's heart) cometh, [it is] a tree of life.
Hope in Yahweh is hope. If we don’t have him as our hope then when things are not right in our lives how awful that would be. Those who have faith in Yahweh are most hopeful people and we must spread that hope.
Lives with meaningful purpose -- the seven aspects give purpose to our lives see the link to the seven aspects on this web site and consider these areas in your life. When one of these areas is out of balance we do not have peace.
Below I have listed how the word Hope is used in scripture:
Hope in Yahweh
Hope in his word
Israel hope in Yahweh
Hope in his mercy
Living is hope
Hope and wait on the salvation of Yah
Prisoner of Hope
He will be a door of Hope ( Hosea 2:15)
Hope as an anchor for our soul
Hope is holding on to a dream
Rest in hope
Hope of the promise of God into our fathers
Rejoicing in hope
Abound in hope
Hope in messiah
Hope of righteousness by faith
Hope which is laid up in heaven
Hope of the gospel
Hope of eternal life
Blessed hope of his appearance
Lively hope of the resurrection
These three abide faith , hope, love. So we see hope is something that will still abide. The uses of hope can be applied to ourselves and others. We must encourage and give hope to others because as we will see when it is fulfilled it is a tree of life.
Proverbs 13:12 Hope deferred ( Drawn out) maketh the heart sick: but [when] the desire ( desire, wish, longings of one's heart) cometh, [it is] a tree of life.
Hope in Yahweh is hope. If we don’t have him as our hope then when things are not right in our lives how awful that would be. Those who have faith in Yahweh are most hopeful people and we must spread that hope.
Lives with meaningful purpose -- the seven aspects give purpose to our lives see the link to the seven aspects on this web site and consider these areas in your life. When one of these areas is out of balance we do not have peace.
Below I have listed how the word Hope is used in scripture:
Hope in Yahweh
Hope in his word
Israel hope in Yahweh
Hope in his mercy
Living is hope
Hope and wait on the salvation of Yah
Prisoner of Hope
He will be a door of Hope ( Hosea 2:15)
Hope as an anchor for our soul
Hope is holding on to a dream
Rest in hope
Hope of the promise of God into our fathers
Rejoicing in hope
Abound in hope
Hope in messiah
Hope of righteousness by faith
Hope which is laid up in heaven
Hope of the gospel
Hope of eternal life
Blessed hope of his appearance
Lively hope of the resurrection
These three abide faith , hope, love. So we see hope is something that will still abide. The uses of hope can be applied to ourselves and others. We must encourage and give hope to others because as we will see when it is fulfilled it is a tree of life.
Job gives a good description of what it is like to lose hope. Job is searching for just a little.
◄ Job 17 ►
New Living Translation
Job Continues to Defend His Innocence 1“My spirit is crushed,and my life is nearly snuffed out.The grave is ready to receive me. 2 I am surrounded by mockers. I watch how bitterly they taunt me. 3“You must defend my innocence, O God, since no one else will stand up for me. 4You have closed their minds to understanding, but do not let them triumph. 5 They betray their friends for their own advantage, so let their children faint with hunger. 6“God has made a mockery of me among the people; they spit in my face. 7My eyes are swollen with weeping, and I am but a shadow of my former self. 8The virtuous are horrified when they see me. The innocent rise up against the ungodly. 9The righteous keep moving forward, and those with clean hands become stronger and stronger. 10“As for all of you, come back with a better argument, though I still won’t find a wise man among you. 11My days are over. My hopes have disappeared. My heart’s desires are broken. 12These men say that night is day; they claim that the darkness is light. 13What if I go to the grave and make my bed in darkness? 14What if I call the grave my father, and the maggot my mother or my sister? 15Where then is my hope? Can anyone find it? 16No, my hope will go down with me to the grave. We will rest together in the dust!”
◄ Job 17 ►
New Living Translation
Job Continues to Defend His Innocence 1“My spirit is crushed,and my life is nearly snuffed out.The grave is ready to receive me. 2 I am surrounded by mockers. I watch how bitterly they taunt me. 3“You must defend my innocence, O God, since no one else will stand up for me. 4You have closed their minds to understanding, but do not let them triumph. 5 They betray their friends for their own advantage, so let their children faint with hunger. 6“God has made a mockery of me among the people; they spit in my face. 7My eyes are swollen with weeping, and I am but a shadow of my former self. 8The virtuous are horrified when they see me. The innocent rise up against the ungodly. 9The righteous keep moving forward, and those with clean hands become stronger and stronger. 10“As for all of you, come back with a better argument, though I still won’t find a wise man among you. 11My days are over. My hopes have disappeared. My heart’s desires are broken. 12These men say that night is day; they claim that the darkness is light. 13What if I go to the grave and make my bed in darkness? 14What if I call the grave my father, and the maggot my mother or my sister? 15Where then is my hope? Can anyone find it? 16No, my hope will go down with me to the grave. We will rest together in the dust!”
Genesis 8:12 And he stayed ( In hebrew this word 'stayed' is used as a root word for hope) yet other seven days; and sent forth the dove; which returned not again unto him any more. KJV
The story of Noah is one of hope. When we see the rainbow we can be reminded still today of His Hope.
The story of Noah is one of hope. When we see the rainbow we can be reminded still today of His Hope.
Psalms 31: 24 Be of good courage, and he shall strengthen your heart, all ye that hope in the LORD. KJV
Psalms 33:18 Behold, the eye of the LORD [is] upon them that fear him, upon them that hope in his mercy; KJV
Psalms 42:5 Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and [why] art thou disquieted in me? hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him [for] the help of his countenance.KJV
Psalms 71:14 But I will hope continually, and will yet praise thee more and more. KJV
Psalms 78:7 That they might set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments: KJV
Psalms 119:81 My soul fainteth for thy salvation: [but] I hope in thy word. KJV
Psalms 147:11 The LORD taketh pleasure in them that fear him, in those that hope in his mercy. KJV
When you lose hope, you lose life.
I once read something that Jessie de la Cruz, a retired farm worker in South America wrote: “With us there’s a saying: La esparanza muere ultima. Hope dies last. You can’t lose hope. If you lose hope, you lose everything.” And I read somewhere else that scientists say that a human can last for forty days without food, a few days without water, eight minutes without oxygen but only a few seconds without hope.
I’ve just read a report written by Harry and Echo van der Wal of the Luke Commission. They are from the USA but are involved for a few months every year in a medical ministry in Swaziland. Through one of the regular readers of this blog we made contact and hopefully we will be meeting in the near future. I strongly advise you to read the report which you can access here. This is such a true description of how we find things ourselves. What he is describing is a situation without hope. You see people whom you know will die shortly and all that remains is to show them love and acceptance in order to restore some dignity. They are working in the northern part of Swaziland, the only difference between their ministry and ours being that they have the medical facilities to do something to help these people while we have virtually nothing in the south of the country. But the circumstances with the people are the same.
Yesterday I escorted a group of Christians from South Africa to Swaziland. We have had a two year relationship with this congregation and they visit us about four times per year. On a previous occasion they brought a doctor along and we had an extremely distressing experience at a certain homestead with a 21 year old girl. You can read about that experience by clicking on this link.
Yesterday the team brought a physiotherapist with them. Their aim is to bring a professional person with them on every visit in order to give the caregivers further training. Part of this training is for the professional person to visit a few of the homesteads where we are working and to demonstrate to a few caregivers at a time how to care for this person. We went to visit a lady who is 74 years old and has been bed-ridden for the past eight years. A few times while we were there she told us that she would like nothing better at this stage than to die.
Her story is that she started developing arthritis about ten years ago. It was becoming more and more painful for her to stand up on her own. In the meantime her husband had died and all her children had also died. Eventually she had nobody with the strength (or the will) to help her up in the mornings to get up and because of the pain she remained in bed. At this stage the muscles in her leg had contracted to such an extent that she will never be able to walk again, even if the pain should disappear. Due to her arms and hands not being used, they have also become completely unusable. And so she is really doomed to remain in bed for the rest of her life. Physiotherapy may loosen the hand and arm muscles to a certain limited extent, but she will never regain their use. And most of this was caused by a lack of education and the lack of anybody with the time, energy and will to help her to get up in the morning.
She is now staying in a small house together with her great-grandchildren. In the morning these children go to school after they had brought her food. Then they lock the house and put the key on a windowsill. Anyone, such as the caregivers wishing to visit her, take the key from the windowsill, unlock the door and enter her house. If a fire should ever break out, she will die. If anybody wishes to harm her, they can enter her home at will. She is unable to do anything to protect herself, because she cannot move from her bed without help.
As I prayed for her yesterday, I just trusted that God would restore her hope. As those people mentioned in the report of the Luke Commission, the reality is that people are fast losing hope. Our task is to bring back hope to these people.
D'vorah- When we can bring hope into someone life it can bring restoration and healing. Lets be messengers of hope.
I once read something that Jessie de la Cruz, a retired farm worker in South America wrote: “With us there’s a saying: La esparanza muere ultima. Hope dies last. You can’t lose hope. If you lose hope, you lose everything.” And I read somewhere else that scientists say that a human can last for forty days without food, a few days without water, eight minutes without oxygen but only a few seconds without hope.
I’ve just read a report written by Harry and Echo van der Wal of the Luke Commission. They are from the USA but are involved for a few months every year in a medical ministry in Swaziland. Through one of the regular readers of this blog we made contact and hopefully we will be meeting in the near future. I strongly advise you to read the report which you can access here. This is such a true description of how we find things ourselves. What he is describing is a situation without hope. You see people whom you know will die shortly and all that remains is to show them love and acceptance in order to restore some dignity. They are working in the northern part of Swaziland, the only difference between their ministry and ours being that they have the medical facilities to do something to help these people while we have virtually nothing in the south of the country. But the circumstances with the people are the same.
Yesterday I escorted a group of Christians from South Africa to Swaziland. We have had a two year relationship with this congregation and they visit us about four times per year. On a previous occasion they brought a doctor along and we had an extremely distressing experience at a certain homestead with a 21 year old girl. You can read about that experience by clicking on this link.
Yesterday the team brought a physiotherapist with them. Their aim is to bring a professional person with them on every visit in order to give the caregivers further training. Part of this training is for the professional person to visit a few of the homesteads where we are working and to demonstrate to a few caregivers at a time how to care for this person. We went to visit a lady who is 74 years old and has been bed-ridden for the past eight years. A few times while we were there she told us that she would like nothing better at this stage than to die.
Her story is that she started developing arthritis about ten years ago. It was becoming more and more painful for her to stand up on her own. In the meantime her husband had died and all her children had also died. Eventually she had nobody with the strength (or the will) to help her up in the mornings to get up and because of the pain she remained in bed. At this stage the muscles in her leg had contracted to such an extent that she will never be able to walk again, even if the pain should disappear. Due to her arms and hands not being used, they have also become completely unusable. And so she is really doomed to remain in bed for the rest of her life. Physiotherapy may loosen the hand and arm muscles to a certain limited extent, but she will never regain their use. And most of this was caused by a lack of education and the lack of anybody with the time, energy and will to help her to get up in the morning.
She is now staying in a small house together with her great-grandchildren. In the morning these children go to school after they had brought her food. Then they lock the house and put the key on a windowsill. Anyone, such as the caregivers wishing to visit her, take the key from the windowsill, unlock the door and enter her house. If a fire should ever break out, she will die. If anybody wishes to harm her, they can enter her home at will. She is unable to do anything to protect herself, because she cannot move from her bed without help.
As I prayed for her yesterday, I just trusted that God would restore her hope. As those people mentioned in the report of the Luke Commission, the reality is that people are fast losing hope. Our task is to bring back hope to these people.
D'vorah- When we can bring hope into someone life it can bring restoration and healing. Lets be messengers of hope.
Hebrews 3:6b
And we are Elohim's house, if we keep our courage and remain confident in our hope in Messiah. NLT
And we are Elohim's house, if we keep our courage and remain confident in our hope in Messiah. NLT
