Hi, I am Millie Joy, co-founder of Church 14, welcome to God Today. I would like to talk to you a little bit about hope. With all the events that have gone on in the world, many are searching for hope. I would like to share with you one of my favorite scriptures regarding this. Open up your Bibles to John 16:33, if you have one near you. I am going to read you this scripture in the New Living Translation. “I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on Earth, you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart because I have overcome the world.”
Now, in my Bible, it has a subtitle for that scripture and it says, “Sadness Will Be Turned Into Joy”. When a lot of people are running into seasons of sadness and season of fear, and where fear is portrayed in front of everyone’s faces, this is a great scripture to open up to, meditate, and pray on. In this scripture, He is telling the people that He is talking to, His disciples, all the things He is going to go through, and how it is going to bring troubles and sorrows. A lot of times, when people become Christians – and this is something I thought – “Now my life is going to be easier because I am a Christian, right? Because we have victory in Christ!” Actually, in this passage, Jesus says, “I promise you this: you will have trials and sorrows.” But He says, “I tell you this so in me you will have peace because I have overcome the world.”
A hopeless time in my life was 10 years ago, I and my husband were really hoping to have a child. And years passed and passed, and we just couldn’t conceive. I had gone through a lot of things in my younger years that doctors had told me, “You are probably not going to be able to have children.” So, I prayed, and I fasted, and I read the story of Hannah out of 1 Samuel over and over, every day. And I remember one of my friends told me, we were driving in a car together, working in Brazil, we had been missionaries to many nations. She said, “My husband and I are going to have a baby. How can you be so sure? I have tried for years and we can’t have a child. And I remember asking God, “God, why? Why is this such a journey for us? Why does this seem so hopeless?” When you really want to have a child and you are dealing with infertility right now, I am talking to you. When you want to have a child it hurts, there is such sorrow, almost like hopelessness.
So, we decided to stand on the promises of God, and I decided to stand on the promises of Hannah. I specifically fasted and prayed, read Hannah every day, and one day, I took a pregnancy test and I was already pregnant. You know how pregnancy tests work. By the time you take the positive pregnancy test, you have been pregnant for over a week or over two weeks. This is how God moves. So a lot of times, by the time we are so desperate and feel so hopeless, God has already done it in our midst and we just can’t see it. We don’t even know, we aren’t even aware of how He is fulfilling the promises in our lives.
So, if you are feeling hopeless right now and you feel there is turmoil, sadness, and sorrow all around you, Jesus is saying to you today: Take heart! I have overcome the world! He doesn’t promise you are not going to have a hard time. He doesn’t promise you aren’t going to go through seasons of hopelessness. But He is telling you: I have overcome the world. And I am telling you this so you will have peace. And if you don’t have peace right now, take up this scripture and meditate on it for a week, for a month. Set time aside every day to meditate on His promises over your life because He speaks hope over you right now.
Lord, I thank you for every viewer watching this right now. I thank you, God, that you have spoken hope, that you have conquered the hopeless situations in their lives, that you are moving in their midst when they don’t see it. That you have done things for them that they can’t even fathom. That their future’s so bright and so beautiful. That there is birthing in the season, and there is conception in the season. Conception for those who want to have a baby and conception for those who need business ideas, or who need provision, or revelation that you are hungry for. I thank you, Lord, for all you are doing in GOD TV, God Today, thank you, Lord. In Jesus’ name. I am Millie Joy, thank you for tuning in.