Billy Graham once said, “Perhaps the greatest psychological, spiritual, and medical need that all people have is the need for hope. And this hope is found in the person of Jesus Christ who died for our sins, rose from the grave and is alive now.”
Amy Carmichael was unfit to be a missionary. She suffered from neuralgia that caused much pain and eventually would render her bedridden. But undeterred, she pursued God until she ended up serving Him in India for 58 years. Her most notable work was the rescue of the Hindu temple prostitutes. These were young girls who were slaves in the Hindu temples, abused and exploited sexually. One day, one of them escaped and ran to the orphanage that Amy had started. This began a lifetime of work for Amy to rescue hundreds of these girls. Her work raised so much awareness to this horrendous practice that it was
eventually banned by the Indian government. Amy provided hope in Jesus Christ for these girls. Quite an opposite from the life of a temple prostitute.
In Luke 7:37-50, we find Jesus providing an eternal hope for a prostitute. A woman who was desperate for a change. One who did not see a way out for her life. Religiously, she was discarded due to her uncleanness. Socially, she was used, abused, and detested. She could not see a bright future for herself. There was no hope in her existence. But she heard of this Jesus. She found hope in this Jesus! Not just for this life, but she was given hope eternal when Jesus forgave her sins also!
Life throws us some curve balls. We may find ourselves in situations that we never expected. There are times in life where we see our hopes dashed, our dreams unrealized, and goals unreached. In desperation, we seek out anything and everything that can satisfy us. Some of these become even more detrimental to our cause. But Jesus provides us with hope eternal! His call is to leave this world behind and seek for the one beyond. This Jesus transcends time and space, life and death, man-made rules and tradition, as well as personal history. He blows past all of those to provide us the forgiveness of sins so that we may have an eternal, abundant life in Him!
As you are reading this, the prayer and plea is that you seek and find the hope in Jesus Christ for all your needs. He was the one who paid the price on the cross to make us righteous and thus pave the way for us to be with God again. Blessings