I am facing a lifetime of managing a chronic mental illness.
I am facing a lifetime of chronic kidney disease and diabetes.
I am also facing a lifetime of perpetual singleness.
That’s three whammies.
Three mentally, physically, and emotionally difficult hardships.
So how do I cope? If I focused only on these three things, I would fall into despair. I can’t go there.
God says in Jeremiah 29:11, “I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future.”
God is my hope. My hope for provision. My hope for salvation. My hope for a future of eternal life.
Based on the scriptures of Exodus 3:16-22, Sunday’s sermon on June 15, 2025 entitled “Hope in Salvation,” focused on this hope that I need to lean on.
Through Moses, God sends Israel a message of hope that they will be delivered from Egyptian oppression. God is telling them that He is going to save them.
In the same way, God gives us hope in our salvation. A salvation that exists in our past, present, and future. God saved us, is still saving us, and will save us forever.
The first salvation is when we come to Christ and believe that He alone can save us.
The second salvation is our present, ongoing sanctification, whereby God keeps saving us by delivering us from false hopes that lead to despair and cynicism.
False hope of our own personal empowerment leads to a lack of motivation and discouragement.
False hope makes us think we are in control and that way of thinking leads us to failure.
God’s hope of sanctification (ongoing salvation) in us can combat that despair.
In this sanctification, this present ongoing salvation shows us how to be more like Christ—it purifies us to be more like Him. God is presently saving us.
We face paths of hard situations in life for our ongoing salvation of deliverance and transformation–the sanctification process.
God empowers us with the gift of His Spirit to enable us to go through these hardships.
Finally, the third salvation is when we will be saved forever in our glorification, which is a time when God will take us to heaven, either after our own personal death or through the rapture when Jesus comes for us.
This resurrection gives us hope and comes at God’s mighty hand.
God does it all. We can’t save ourselves. Christ is the object of our hope. We were powerless to change ourselves. Jesus gives us His righteousness and enables us to change by His Spirit. Jesus is our salvation–past, present, and future.
Hope changes everything–it changes our outlook, disposition, and mood.
Hope of salvation is what we can lean on during the tough times of life in this world.
Even in present hardship, I am just passing through this world until I get to the other side in heaven.
So the threat to mental health, physical health, and emotional health in my life cannot remain forever.
Forever is with Jesus.
—Ann Elizabeth Yeager