My last post was a rant against rants.

Today, my focus is on the positive.

The more today’s thoughts power my walk, the more the light of Jesus will shine into my soul, and into the life and soul of others.

Bill Hybels of Chicago’s Willow Creek Church has made the phrase “The local church is the hope of the world” a common axiom of Christ followers around the world.

I cannot challenge or take issue with his statement.

I believe in and am committed to God the Father, Jesus the Son, and the Holy Spirit. In their divine plan of restoration of a broken world, Jesus died on a cross, arose to ascend to God’s right hand, and sent the Holy Spirit to empower believers as they live together in Christ’s church across the face of the globe.

Jesus commissioned believers to make disciples throughout the world and teach them to obey Him and His teachings—all because He wants to shine hope into a dark world.

During my junior year at the university, I took my first class in preaching. The professor introduced us to the sermons of Charles Spurgeon of Britain known as “the prince of preachers.”

In a sermon on feeding the 5,000, Spurgeon proclaims,

“And let the entire body of the Church of our Lord Jesus Christ–instead of looking to societies for evangelization, or to commerce, or to governments– remember that she is the sole savior of the world. As Christ was the world’s hope, so is the Church the world’s hope, and she must take up the charge as if there were not another.”

The church strategically planted around the world is God’s dispenser of hope to a messed-up Satanic world of war, famine, violence, pain, grief, and despair.

If I truly believe the church is the hope of the world, I can turn down my own anxiety meter. That step in itself will allow me to live light along side of my fellow travelers. My message and my actions will help people see the reality of this world. It is not home.

Satan walks across our planet seeking to destroy us by using every tactic we classify as bad. Tornados, drowning, violence, greed, war, strife, envy, murder, divorce, lousy parents, and destructive influence of every type I can possibly imagine are his doing.

Satan wants me to charge God with wrong. However, God never causes wrong.

God’s goal for me is salvation and an eternal home where I no longer am touched by Satan’s destructive forces.

It is for this hope I live.

After 66 years of life, all of the evidence points toward that hope. I cannot prove it. However, I trust God to remain true to His word as He has always done in the past.

This makes church of ultimate importance. There isn’t time to fight with fellow believers, nor should we have any desire to do so. We as members of the body of Christ are the hope of the world.

It is a grave mistake if others fail to see our hope because we spend time occupying the seat of judgment instead of illuminating church light towers with hope. We are church builders. We build hope.

Let’s promise each other we will bond together as the church of Jesus Christ and shine forth hope to a dark world.

Stay tuned. – Gary J. Sorrells – On Cross Church