Many Christians seek prayer and counsel because they “need a word from God,” yet they don’t realize that their desperation for a word comes from their deficit of the Word. They can read the Bible but choose not to.

Every word of God is utterly reliable when obeyed and all of the Bible is applicable to life.

Forget the illusions foisted upon you by today’s false messiahs, from Michael Jackson to the Maharishi, from Madison Avenue to Capitol Hill. Learn to speak the language of hope that is called God’s Word. Fill your mind with it. Pray for yourself that the “God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you will abound in hope by the power of his Holy Spirit.”

The only answer is to return to the Rock from which we were hewn two thousand years ago and to let His mind be in us.

Yes, people will notice the change in you. But after they’ve been around you for a while, they will also notice a change in themselves for having been with you. They will know for sure that the hope you now profess is no illusion. It’s the real thing.

(Chapter 5, Illusions of Hope, p. 64-74)

This blog is an excerpt from Terry Law’s book “The Hope Habit.”