CRAIGforCONGRESS

Missouri's 7th District, U.S. House of Representatives

 

 

 

God is Filling Me With


Hope




An optimistic yearning for the triumph of God's Kingdom


1. A desire of some good, accompanied with at least a slight expectation of obtaining it, or a belief that it is obtainable. Hope always gives pleasure or joy, whereas wish and desire may produce or be accompanied with pain and anxiety.
2. Confidence in a future event; the highest degree of well founded expectation of good; as a hope founded on God's gracious promises; a scriptural sense.
     A well founded scriptural hope, is, in our religion, the source of ineffable happiness.
3. That which gives hope; he or that which furnishes ground of expectation, or promises desired good. The hope of Israel is the Messiah.
     The Lord will be the hope of His people.

Joel iii.

4. An opinion or belief not amounting to certainty, but grounded on substantial evidence.
     The Christian indulges a hope, that his sins are pardoned.

Webster's 1st ed., 1828


I have therefore thought fit to recommend, and I do hereby recommend, that Wednesday, the 9th day of May next, be observed throughout the United States as a day of solemn humiliation, fasting, and prayer; that the citizens of these States, abstaining on that day from their customary worldly occupations, offer their devout addresses to the Father of Mercies agreeably to those forms or methods which they have severally adopted as the most suitable and becoming; that all religious congregations do, with the deepest humility, acknowledge before God the manifold sins and transgressions with which we are justly chargeable as individuals and as a nation, beseeching Him at the same time, of His infinite grace, through the Redeemer of the World, freely to remit all our offenses, and to incline us by His Holy Spirit to that sincere repentance and reformation which may afford us reason to hope for his inestimable favor and heavenly benediction;
Given under my hand and the seal of the United States of America, at Philadelphia, this 23d day of March, A. D. 1798, and of the Independence of the said States the twenty-second. [SEAL.]
JOHN ADAMS.
By the President:
Messages and Papers of the Presidents, John Adams, vol. 1, pp. 258-260

Whereas it is the duty of nations as well as of men to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God, to confess their sins and transgressions in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon, and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord;
Done at the city of Washington, this 30th day of March, A. D. 1863,
and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-seventh.
[SEAL.]
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Abraham Lincoln, vol. 5, p.3365

On June 3, 1783, George Washington sent a circular letter to the governors of the thirteen states from his headquarters in Newburgh, New York. He closed that letter with a prayer that God would
most graciously be pleased to dispose us all, to do Justice, to love mercy, and to demean ourselves with that Charity, humility, and pacific temper of mind, which were the characteristicks of the Divine Author of our blessed religion, and without an humble imitation of whose example in these things, we can never hope to be a happy Nation.

These words resonate in my being; Christ is using me to send forth justice to victory (Matthew 12:20):

  • expectant
  • positive
  • optimistic
  • affirmative
  • cheerful
  • confident
  • encouraging
  • promising
  • sanguine
  • assured
  • secure
  • certain
  • utopian
  • idealist
  • visionary
  • lofty
  • soaring
  • grandiose
  • heavenly
  • convinced
  • sure

Romans 5:3 And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance,
4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope,
5 and hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.


The commission to Christopher Columbus, prior to his sail westward, is from "Ferdinand and Isabella, by the grace of God, king and queen of Castile," etc., and recites that "it is hoped that by God's assistance some of the continents and islands in the ocean will be discovered," etc.
U.S. Supreme Court, Holy Trinity Church vs. U.S., 143 U.S. 457, 466 (1892)

The which I hope in Our Lord will prove the greatest honour to Christianity ever accomplished with such ease
Columbus, Journal of First Voyage to America


And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.
-- Romans 8:28-29

This book of the Law shall not depart out of thy mouth: but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success.
-- Joshua 1:8


This isn't that New Age "Positive Thinking" stuff, is it??


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