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??
Table of
Contents
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