Most people don’t understand hope. Hope is not some wishful thinking about the future — pie in the sky in the by and by. You need hope now. You need hope today. You need hope, not necessarily because you’re going to die tonight, but because you’ve got to get up tomorrow and live.

You know the reason why people are hopeless today is because they’re putting their hope in all the wrong things and they’re looking for hope in all the wrong places.

If you put your hope in success or status or your salary or sex or your possessions, your privilege, your power, your popularity — every one of these things will disappoint you.  You’ve got to put your hope in something that cannot be changed. And that is God’s love for you. That’s never going to stop. It’s never going to change.

Because of God’s unchanging love He sent His son Jesus to show you that no matter what you’re going through right now, there’s a reason for hope.

A Woman Named Mary Magdalene

On the morning of his resurrection the very first person that Jesus showed himself to was not one of his 12 disciples, not an apostle or a religious leader. He showed himself first of all to a woman named Mary Magdalene.

Mary Magdalene had quite a different story. All of her life Mary just wanted to be loved. There’s nothing wrong with that, just wanting to be loved. Everybody wants just to be loved, to be valued, to be respected, to have dignity, to feel like somebody cares about us. Mary just wanted to be loved. Unfortunately she tended to look in all the wrong places.  As a result it left her wide open to be abused and to be misused.

Some of you know what I’m talking about. Men used her and men abused her. You might say she was unlucky at love, because she went from one failed relationship to the next. She couldn’t figure out, what she was doing wrong? She just wanted to be loved. She bounced from one bad situation to the next. Being hurt. And all of these men broke her heart.

Until one day she meets a man named Jesus Christ. For the first time there’s a man in her life who treats her with dignity, treats her with respect, cares more about her than just her body. He loves her the way she’d always wanted to be loved. He loves her unconditionally. He loves her completely. He loves her regardless of her faults, her failures, her mistakes and her bad relationships. He just loves her.

Jesus didn’t just love her. He liberated her. He set her free from habits and hurts and hang-ups that messed up her life. He set her free from addictions and abuses, from patterns and habits that kept her stuck in one bad relationship after another. He set her free. He liberated her from the demons of her past that haunted her. He becomes the reason she believes there is hope. Hope that can bring change. Hope that gives one a reason for living life to the fullest.

If you feel your life has been just one big failure after another, because you like Mary have tried everything, then I recommend you connect or reconnect and become a believer and faithful follower of Jesus Christ. Many try him, but so few really trust Him.

For over 50 years now I have found Him flawless in his faithfulness. You can trust Him, He will not let you down.

Originally published at Intentional Encounter, and is reprinted with permission.