At the recent Simply Beautiful Women’s Fellowship Dinner honoring our Missions Ambassadors and Affiliates, many women experienced the rewards of giving. As a result of the giving, many experience the rewards of receiving.Whether the giving was an outpouring of love, an intimate time of prayer and intercession, a deeper relationship built through fellowship, or giving of financial gifts, this gathering was filled with the an overflow of generous giving. Such a genuine expression of God’s love was expressed through the women at this special gathering.
The Missions Ambassadors and Affiliates were blessed in countless ways. Those giving were abundantly blessed, too. It was quite amazing to see how the Spirit of God moved throughout our time of giving. All of the women celebrated this special time.
With much gratitude, we thank our dear friend, Gail Hartley, for inspiring us all to increase our giving on behalf of these beautiful women who are serving on foreign fields worldwide. Although the joy of giving and receiving was celebrated the entire week, the reward is eternal!
Perhaps the Lord will inspire you to invest in the lives of those we honored at our dinner. If it is a prayer, a word of encouragement, or a financial gift, be faithful to give it!
I encourage you to meet these dedicated servants who faithfully serve all over the world through our Destiny World Missions web page. You, too, will be inspired to be a part of God’s Kingdom building among the nations.
In addition to the extraordinary time of giving, we had a powerful teaching by Rita Reus. You will be uplifted and encouraged as you take to heart the truths of her teachings. Hope is yours to keep for life!
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THERE IS HOPE - Rita Reus
Hope – a word we use many times throughout the course of a day. “I hope we’ll make it on time.” “I hope that everything will be okay.” “I hope that it will rain today.” With the turmoil in our present world, the uncertainty of the future, the ups and downs in the financial market, we need hope more than ever! Hope isn’t optional in our lives, it’s essential to our survival. Hope is basic to life. Our dreams will fade fast, if we don’t have hope. When you take away hope, depression and despair will take its place. In the midst of life’s hurts and dreams, nothing helps like hope.
So, where does hope come from? Hope begins with a relationship with God. Think about your life before you came to know the Lord. You were as the scripture states in Ephesians 2:12,
“That at that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world” NKJV.
You had no hope, but then that glorious time of salvation came and you are now in Christ Jesus and as stated in Ephesians 2:13, “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ” NKJV. Aren’t you thankful for the blood? Once without hope, but now cleansed and set free by the saving grace of Jesus Christ you have hope!
In Romans 15:13 we see that God is the author of hope, “Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost.” In Romans 8:24 we see that hope is a factor in our salvation, “For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doeth he yet hope for?” In Hebrews 6:18-19 hope is an anchor of the soul, “So that through two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to seize the hope set before us. We have this hope – like a sure and firm anchor of the soul – that enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain (HSCB). Hope accomplishes for the soul the same thing which an anchor does for a ship. It holds it fast and secure. An anchor preserves a ship when the waves beat and the winds blow, and as long as the anchor holds, the ship is safe. So it is with the soul of the Christian; in the trials and tests of life, his mind is calm as long as his hope of heaven is sure. In I John 3:3 we see that hope is a purifying power, “And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure.” One who has the hope of seeing Christ as he is; purifieth himself – that is, he abstains from all evil, and keeps himself from all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, of the eye and the pride of life.
Our hope can’t lie in man or in great leaders. In Psalm 146:3-5 it tells us not to put our trust in princes, nor in the son of man, where there is no help, but it says, “Happy is he who has the God of Jacob for his help, Whose hope is in the Lord his God. Our hope can’t lay in our own flesh. Our flesh, our feelings, our emotions will fail us, but God will not. Psalm 73:26 “My flesh and my heart fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.
Jesus is our only hope! The next time you think of the word “hope” remember this:
H – Help – He is there when you call upon him. Psalm 34:17
O – Omniscient – He is all knowing! He already knows what you are going through. Psalm 147:4,5
P – Present – He is omnipresent! He is ever with you. Psalm 137:7-12
E – Eternal – We wait for that eternal hope! Revelation 22:20
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The women of Destiny thank Rita for her dedication to the Lord and His people throughout the years. She is an encouragement to us as a dear friend and fellow laborer. Her life will continue to be an inspiration to many.
written by Cynthia Vela (Women's Ministry Director) and Rita Reus (Missions Secretary)
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