We love building relationships. Subscribe to our blog to receive weekly encouragement in your email inbox.
Visit Our Store
Donate
You can also mail checks, made out to IRSM, to:
Iron Rose Sister Ministries
PO Box 1351
Searcy, AR 72145
IRSM is a 501(c)(3), so donations are tax-deductible.
Blog
A love story of hope
The Bible is a love story, offering hope to a world without purpose or direction.
And this time of year, in the midst of the commercialism that surrounds the holiday, we are given the opportunity to remember and to share that message of love and hope with others.
Hope came in the form of a child, a babe wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger (Luke 2:12).
Love came down from heaven, became flesh and dwelt among us (1 John 4:8, John 1:14).
Emmanuel, God with us, was born as the Messiah, the fulfillment of prophecy and promise of hope.
Love from the Father, personified in the Son, reinforced through the Spirit.
May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and by his grace gave us eternal encouragement and good hope, encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good deed and word. (2 Thes. 2:16-17)
Take a moment today to share that love and hope with at least two people you know—a reminder to someone who already knows and an invitation to someone who doesn’t.
Hope for Job
Eighteen times in the book of Job, the word hope is mentioned.
Job cries out for hope.
“What strength do I have, that I should still hope? What prospects, that I should be patient? (Job 6:11)
And in the words of his friends, Bildad, and Zophar,
Hope is for those who remember God.
Such is the destiny of all who forget God; so perishes the hope of the godless. (Job 8:13)
And there is security in hope.
You will be secure, because there is hope; you will look about you and take your rest in safety. (Job 11:18)
However, their words of hope are intermixed with accusations and their own interpretation of why Job is suffering.
In chapter 42, God chastises these friends, but does not mention Job’s young friend Elihu. This is likely because he spoke up in God’s defense.
It is Elihu’s mention of God’s love that begins to change Job’s perspective and the conversation turns toward hope (Job 37:13).
So, while we, like Job, long for hope in the midst of suffering, hope is unattainable without a focus on God’s love and our trust that He is in control.
God’s love is the ultimate source of hope.
