Are you discouraged? I know I am not alone in believing this pandemic is lasting much too long. Is there a way to press the rewind button and replay the year 2020 with a different outcome?
If I was in charge, I would nominate the song “Together” by for KING & COUNTRY, Kirk Franklin and Tori Kelly as the Anthem of the Pandemic of 2020.
Are you lookin’ for hope tonight? Raise your hand!
Joel and Luke Smallbone, the brothers comprising for KING & COUNTRY, worked on this song for two years and shelved it for future use.
Subsequently, they realized the song reflected actual issues facing the world in 2020. Collaboration with Kirk Franklin and Tori Kelly brought the song to life again at the right time. God is always on time, never early or late!
They filmed it during quarantine in their homes, along with 2000 contributors of stories and voices. It debuted on Good Morning America.
(To read the full song lyrics, click here.)
God offers genuine hope for all outcast souls of the entire world.
Hope for today, tomorrow, and eternity.
God promises hope for today
“If you’re lookin’ for hope tonight, raise your hand; If you feelin’ alone and don’t understand” 1
We find hope when we hit bottom. Jesus is our Living Hope today and every day. As Peter wrote, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (1 Peter 1:3, ESV)
All things begin anew. We become new creations today if we believe in what Christ did for us on the cross. Paul uses the present tense as he wrote, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (2 Corinthians 5:17, ESV, emphasis added).
Today we have hope. Don’t feel alone. Reach out to God. He is near. Because He loves us as His children now, “See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:1-2, ESV, emphasis added)
God promises hope for tomorrow
With God, we always get a second chance, and a third chance, to infinity—that is grace. Grace is when we get what we don’t deserve. Grace from God never runs out or expires.
Our salvation begins with grace. We all are sinners and deserve death, the entire wrath of God. But God, because He loved us so much, “made us alive together with Christ” and saved us by grace. (Ephesians 2:4-5)
The Greek word for grace, “charis,” means a gift or a blessing. We receive the gift of God’s grace by faith, not through anything we do on our own, but by what Jesus did on the cross. (Romans 3:24)
God promises hope for eternity
This is our one true and everlasting hope. Hope for our souls when Jesus comes again to gather all who believe in Him.
But unbelievers have no hope. As Paul wrote, “Remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ” (Ephesians 2:12-13 ESV).
The last two chapters of the Bible, Revelation 21-22, reveal the good news of a new heaven and new earth. Jesus is our only hope, though we do not see it yet, have faith, “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away” (Revelation 21:4, ESV).
Praise God for His promises of hope. Because without hope, what else do we have?
Reference
- Smallbone, Joel. Together. Shankel Songs, Method To The Madness, Kilns Music, Be Essential Songs, Church Boy Llc, Curb Dayspring Music, Curb Word Music. Source: Musixmatch.
