Hope Church PCA

Presbyterian Church in Winston-Salem

Sunday Schedule:

8:30 & 11:00 a.m. – Worship
10:00 a.m. – Sunday School
10:15 a.m. – Hope Café

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Clyde's Farewell

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The Father’s Way of Working

June 18, 2017 |

“Your faith will not fail while God sustains it; you are not strong enough to fall away while God is resolved to hold you.”

―J.I. Packer
Knowing God

“Optimism hopes for the best without any guarantee of its arriving and is often no more than whistling in the dark. Christian hope, by contrast, is faith looking ahead to the fulfillment of the promises of God, as when the Anglican burial service inters the corpse ‘in sure and certain hope of the Resurrection to eternal life, through our Lord Jesus Christ.’ Optimism is a wish without warrant; Christian hope is a certainty, guaranteed by God himself. Optimism reflects ignorance as to whether good things will ever actually come. Christian hope expresses knowledge that every day of his life, and every moment beyond it, the believer can say with truth, on the basis of God’s own commitment, that the best is yet to come.”

―J.I. Packer
Never Beyond Hope

“Now I wonder whether I have sufficiently realized that during all this time God has been trying to find me, to know me, and to love me. The question is not ‘How am I to find God?’ but ‘How am I to let myself be found by him?’ The question is not ‘How am I to know God?’ but ‘How am I to let myself be known by God?’ And, finally, the question is not ‘How am I to love God?’ but ‘How am I to let myself be loved by God?’ God is looking into the distance for me, trying to find me, and longing to bring me home.”

―Henri J.M. Nouwen
The Return of the Prodigal Son: A Story of Homecoming

The Grace for Healing

June 11, 2017 |

“I was regretting the past; And fearing the future.
Suddenly my Lord was speaking:

‘My name is I Am.’ He paused. I waited. He continued,
‘When you live in the past; With its mistakes and regrets,
It is hard. I am not there, My name is not I WAS.’

‘When you live in the future; With its problems and fears,
It is hard. I am not there. My name is not I WILL BE.’

‘When you live in this moment, It is not hard. I am here.
My name is I AM.’”

—Helen Mallicoat,
I Am Poem

 

“As my sufferings mounted, I soon realized that there were two ways in which I could respond to my situation—either to react with bitterness or seek to transform the suffering into a creative force. I decided to follow the latter course.”

―Martin Luther King Jr.,
Suffering and Faith

 

“In a futile attempt to erase our past, we deprive the community of our healing gift. If we conceal our wounds out of fear and shame, our inner darkness can neither be illuminated nor become a light for others.”

―Brennan Manning
Abba’s Child

The Strength from Resting

June 4, 2017 |

“We can all be Mary, even if we don’t have an hour to sit down for ‘quiet time.’ It’s all in our attitude toward the things that need to be done and the people we are serving. If we view our husbands, families, and guests as so many leeches crying, “Give, give!” then we are not going to develop a godly joy as we serve them. If we resent the fact that our husbands sit down to read with the children while we are preparing supper, we are being harpies, just like Martha. Choose the better part. Be Mary in the kitchen. Sing praises while you sweep up those never-ending crumbs. Whistle hymns while you wipe down the bathroom. Meditate upon Scripture while you are folding that third pile of laundry.

Be a Mary! When the laundry piles rise up in rebellion, the children don’t do their chores right, or the kitchen sink never seems to quite empty itself, rejoice! Choose the better part, crank up the praise, and lay down your life.”

—Wendell Berry
Passionate Housewives Desperate for God

 

“Better is a handful of quietness than two hands full of toil and a striving after wind.”

—Ecclesiastes 4:6

 

“Romantic love is blind to everything except what is lovable and lovely, but Christ’s love sees us with terrible clarity and sees us whole. Christ’s love so wishes our joy that it is ruthless against everything in us that diminishes our joy. The worst sentence Love can pass is that we behold the suffering which Love has endured for our sake, and that is also our acquittal. The justice and mercy of the judge are ultimately one.”

—Frederick Buechner