POSITIVE WRITTEN SERMON – You Have Something To Hope For

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As adults often, we do not feel the spiritual mystery. The busyness of life often makes us blind to the wonder. If it is missing, even just a little bit, you need to spiritually fill yourself back up again. The way you do that is not by looking at the life through tired eyes – you look from within, spiritually. Then, from within, when you again perceive the hope and wonder – all the rest that you see becomes wonder and magic.

We can have areas of our thinking that are a bit dark, that are just a bit numb because of some of the stress of life. But when we get into the spirit and allow the wonder of the Christ to work again inside of us, it is mighty and powerful!

As a child we had great anticipation and great hope because we knew that everything was taken care of. As an adult, we need to have that same spirit inside of us.

The problem is that we are often fighting a cynical adult mind. We know the pressures of life well. We know the financial pressures of trying to make ends meet.

We know how short our days are. Life seems to move quicker every year. But when we allow that majesty of hope to take place inside of us, something very, very special occurs.

Do you remember the play, “Annie”, where she sang in the middle of the Depression, “The sun will come out tomorrow”?

That play was supposed to take place during the Great Depression. Some, this very day, are totally consumed by depression. They want life to be right again. They want to find that ingredient that is somehow missing, the spiritual recipe, to make everything good again, but they don’t know how. It seems like over the years they lost the ability.

In Ephesians 3:11-12 it says, ” … Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have boldness and confidence of access through faith … “

Confidence of Access.

Those are some of my favorite three words in the Bible – “confidence of access”. Let us suppose you work for a company. You are on a special project in which you have to step out in faith and take risks, but you have “confidence of access” because you have an open-door policy with the president of that corporation. You know that no matter how much you have to step out on faith, you can go to the president and say, “Hey, is this all right? Am I taking the right action? Am I doing the right thing?”

Think about this in your life. This is why we are here. We are to think and rethink, and rethink spiritually, and make God real; to make hope real inside of us. Today as you build the hope inside of you, as you put one block on this brand new house you’re building in the faith scene inside of you, you are going to have real God ordained hope.

Nothing in your life right now is going to drag you down so much that you can’t have hope. Why? Because you have “confidence of access” to God.

Now there’s REAL power – if we really know that at any moment, no matter how tough the day is or how overwhelming it is to the human, we have a greater power than ourselves to call upon and to allow it to work through us.

The apostle Paul wrote letters to the churches. The reason he did this was because the churches were feeling great fear. It is no different today. Churches are people, and people do feel fear. It is a natural feeling because there are a lot of things that happen in life that we need to overcome. But in these letters, Paul continually told them to hope in Christ and to step out on faith. He said that this is the type of hope that transcends mere wishful thinking. It is a hope that springs eternal, just like our faith in God.

Imagine if you have this at the foundation of your being – at the foundation of your life. To really celebrate this day that God has given us, we have to be reborn.

We have to experience anew. We have to be reborn and know that God is with us.

We are not just repeating yesterday – with God’s help we have new day to experience – because we are new. We have to know that everything is all right.

We have a hope that springs eternal inside of us.

“We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.” Romans 6:4

We know that you do not have to die a physical death to feel dead. God created you in nine months’ time, and God is not done re-creating you. If you consent and accept you can have new hope, and walk in the newness of life.

“Christ in you the HOPE of glory.” Colossians 1:27

So, on the foundation of your life, give yourself the ultimate gift of the Christ awareness. You know, today, that no matter what you are facing, NOTHING is impossible to you.

It is the message of God working inside of each of our lives, no matter what our religion. As we go to God, as we hope, and as we bring forth that power inside of us and through us, we’ll know that spiritually nothing is impossible to us.

We have confidence of access!

We say, at this point, that we allow our hearts to be lifted up into new hope, great expectancy, wonder and mystery. We can testify through our lives that it does work. I can testify that we have a choice. This is the best time to have that choice.

Discover the power of taking a spiritual inventory, making a list of all the good in our lives, past and present, and giving thanks; how this opens us up to God. If we are opened up to God’s good, more good flows to us. If we know what God has done in the past, that gives us a foundation to stand on for new hope in the future.

Do you know that people in this world are not born happy? They are not born with a silver spoon in their mouth, so to say, spiritually. They are not born with an attitude that makes them hopeful all their lives. They must create it within themselves.

One person shared, “At one time in my life, I was the most negative person you would ever want to meet. Everything was based in Disaster, and drama. I knew I had to change that, but how? Sure, I had started to read books about positive thinking, but I still didn’t know how to change. It is so easy to slip back, and you do not even know you have slipped back until you’ve slipped. Then you say, “Oh boy, here’s another week when I was going to be positive, and now I’ve slipped back.”

He said, “I had a calendar. I started to keep track of my good days and my bad days with just an arrow. An arrow pointing down meant it was a bad day and an arrow pointing up meant it was a good day. I started to watch and examine myself. What I saw was not so good. Then, as I looked at each week and each month, I started to see a change. I noticed that I started remembering earlier in the day that I wanted to have an “up arrow” on my calendar.” He said he realized that “I have a choice here.”

A life is not built on material possessions and things outside of yourself. It is built by the thoughts you hold in mind.

Start to realize that your life is: Thoughts X 365 days = a positive, happy person, or a negative person. Realize that you have the power and you can change your day. And when you change your day and realize with hope that God is working with you, you know you have the power.

You have confidence of access.

When we read books about people, especially famous people, do we realize they are just ordinary people who have in some way gone beyond the ordinary? How have they gone beyond the ordinary? They have gone beyond the ordinary in their thoughts; in deciding that they can take the reins of their life and change it.

So with a simple calendar, you can make the decision for yourself. You begin to map out your life and retrain yourself. Each day write down one word, attribute, or action where you will exhibit the Christ – and then that day live to do that.

At the end of the year, you will have 365 X positive thoughts. What is going to happen to you? You’re going to find that your positive thoughts and your hope align with the Christ Mind and have become the living part of who you are.

You cannot have access to something unless you become like it. Let me repeat that. You cannot have access to something with full power and full majesty unless you become like it.

“Whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.” 1 John 2:6

As you have hope, even as a grain of mustard seed, you are providing an opportunity for the floodgates of God good to be opened and for all the wonder of God to work through your life. When that happens, you can put that day as an “up day” in your life.

You’re already your own story, and so am I. We are all writing biographies right now. Every day is a mini lifetime. Are we happy today? Do we feel the hope of God today? If your story could only be told in this 24-hour period, what would you want people to say of you? You would want people to say the best. You would want people to say how loving you were and how hopeful.

If you go into a situation that’s negative, you want to BE THE ONE to spread hope – and not false hope, but hope that you really believe; not wishful thinking, but God’s truth. You know that you have access to God, and having access to God, you have incredible power to bring forth in and through your life what you wish to bring forth. The way you convert others to a higher way of life than they are presently living, is for them to see something in you – that they want badly in their life.

Let me share with you Job 11:18. “And you will have confidence, because there is hope; you will be protected and take your rest in safety.”

I like that – “Take your rest in safety.”

If God is everywhere present and all good, and the only power in the universe, what do we need to be protected from?” That’s a good question. Think about that for a minute.

What do we need to be protected from?

We need to be protected FROM OURSELVES.

We need to constantly remind ourselves that we are not alone. The minute we think we’re alone, we cut off a great access inside of us and we feel we are powerless. We feel that we are all by ourselves and that God is far off. When we think that way, we need to be protected from those sorts of thoughts, because they are self-delusional lies that distort our own thinking.

The Bible urges – Have this mind in you – that was also in Christ Jesus!

One of the greatest gifts that God has given us is an abiding hope. There is not one mind inside of you; there are two. There is a human mind in you, but there is also a Christ Mind. This Christ Mind has great power. It has built-in powers that come with it – as standard equipment from the Creator.

The minute we become silent, as we do in our prayers, we have this other mind enter in; this mind has a vision that is higher than that we hold of ourselves; this mind has guidance, and this mind has a built-in hope because it knows the power it has.

Thoughts held in mind produce after their kind – hold the right thoughts inside of you.

What if you could go in for a mind transplant and have an organ donor give you the brain of the most powerful, Christian person on the earth who had faith in God, a person who knew the complete confidence of access to God and the hope of God? Well, you can. It’s not surgical; it’s spiritual.

When we become quiet and say, “God, I consent to You, Your power and Your majesty,” a new mind begins its spiritual thought process.

Regeneration comes into the picture, life is without beginning and without end. It is eternal. There is an ageless power that comes in. Our human mind holds an idea about our own abilities and our limitations. But God is perfection and God is incredible spiritual power working inside of you.

Life can be tough unless you plug yourself in and connect. The Christ Mind inside of you is always relaxed. It is never nervous. It is not sick, or over stressed.

This is not theory. It has been proven; everyone in existence can prove it. They can know God, personally, one-on-one, and they can be full hope, full access, charged up. They can fill their calendars with “up” arrows and know the God-given power and majesty that is with them.

There is a Divine plan for your life.

Many say, “I feel like I’m a boat and I’m drifting. I want to know the plan.”

We need to relax and allow God’s inspiration to come through.

Here is what is NOT going to happen. God’s not going to come to you and hit you over the head with a cosmic two-by-four and say, “Hey, you have messed up again. God is always gentle. God never criticizes. God is loving. You might feel your human mind being hugged. You might feel a giant, wonderful, soft voice say, “I love you and I care for you. Stop struggling so much. Stop hating yourself. Stop criticizing and being so cynical of everything in your life.” God says, “Look with My eyes and perceive with My love. Give yourself a break and let Me take over. Let Me work on it for a while.”

When we do, it’s so wonderful. We go forward with a great recharge. We feel a great renewal and a great sense of peace.

Psalms 39:7 says, “And now, Lord, for what do I wait? My hope is in Thee.”

We wait. We say, “God, if You can fix this and take care of my bills and my financial burdens, then I will go from here where I am and I’ll be happy and hopeful.” As God’s hugging your mind God says, “Why wait? When you are feeling pain, when you are feeling great problems fall around your life, why wait? Give yourself a break and allow God’s power to take over and ease your burden.” God says, “My hope is in you!” Everyone here has it equally because it is part of God’s basic gift to you. You are not far away from it. You have it with you now.

The Bible says something that is somewhat mysterious. It says, “Hope is the anchor of the soul.” We have an anchor inside of us, just like a boat. Wherever we put our anchor down, we stay. We can put our anchor into gloom, misery and despair or we can put our anchor down in great power and great relief. We can put our anchor down in hope.

When you hope from your human mind, it feeds your belief. We need spiritual nourishment.

We have to ask the question whether or not we are feeding ourselves. How do we feed ourselves? By rising in mind to the high plain of thoughts; by hoping. This feeds our soul. We have that opening inside of us that allows the floodgates to open and allows all the majesty of God to come forth. It does so with great power.

Many people have changed their lives. They have gone from depression to being very hopeful people. If we had one gift to give the world, we would give the world hope. We wish, we pray, that we could give each one of you a real awareness of hope that would immediately manifest inside of you; hope that would never leave you, that you couldn’t get away from. We give you, God’s truth. This IS real. You can take it on and wear it as your own.

I am asking you to do this: to make a commitment to take your calendar and begin to monitor yourself. Retrain yourself spiritually. It will happen. You will be new. And you will feel good again in every aspect of your life.

Let us pray. God, I come to You today with an open mind and an open heart. I come to You today with a great belief in You and my access to You. I come today realizing that I can have hope again in my life, and that I can have it so it never leaves. I’m tired of living life on a roller coaster where sometimes I feel good and other times, I feel bad. I want to have the consistency of the omnipresence of Your hope. I want to feel that power inside of me. So, I open up my mind today and I begin, one step at a time, one day at a time, to rebuild my life. I will feel hope. I will be hopeful. And I will manifest it and demonstrate it to all around me.

In Jesus Christ’s name … Amen.

God bless you!

PRAYER / MEDITATION___________________________

In spiritual celebration we meet – in celebration of God, and in celebration of the spiritual wonder that is working all around us. We close our eyes and allow our awareness to be directed to the secret place of the most High inside of us. We allow God’s power to happen in, and through us – not just in our minds, but behind every organ, tissue, and cell of our physical body temple. We allow and consent to the power of the Creator, God, to be manifest in our lives.

In Psalms 62:5 it says: “For God alone my soul waits in silence, for my hope is from God.”

Rest for a moment in the silence and wait on God, because God is there waiting for you …

In the sanctuary of stillness in our own soul, we remember the presence and power of God. This is a place where we can feel and know the Presence.

This moment, in this place of stillness and silence, feel the presence of God filling you with strength. The presence of God renews your energy and brings peace to any troubled thoughts you may have.

Rest in the silence of prayer …

Right now in this prayer, you turn your thoughts away from any trouble, and think about God instead.

You turn your attention away from outer things and you bring whatever might be troubling you to God. You say, “God, I have this trouble, this feeling, and it’s keeping me from feeling Your hope. It is standing between me and You. I ask that You take this challenge I’m facing, lift it up off my shoulders, and take it away from me so that my burden will be light.”

Now, in this prayer time, with all the power of God with you, I ask that you give your challenge to God.

Rest in the silence of prayer …

Through the power of Jesus Christ, I decree that you are filled with new hope and new vision. I pray that in the silence of prayer, God is reassuring you that you are not alone. You allow this new hope and new vision to fill you. You begin anew to do what is yours to do this glorious week of God. You let the power of God uplift you and sustain you in whatever lies before you. You abide in the stillness of your own being.

You feel a new hope inside of your heart.

Rest in the silence of prayer …

Dear God, we pray that today and every day that we will go forth in the assurance of Your presence and we will know that power is ever active in and through us and in our lives. We are nurtured by You. We are protected by You. And we live our lives with a renewed hope.

We pray, this day, with great belief in today and hope in the future,

In Jesus Christ’s name … Amen

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