It has been said we can live 40 days without food, 8 days without water, 4 minutes without oxygen, but only a few seconds without hope.
Hope is a spiritual instinct that assures us God is the one who writes the final chapter in the story in our life.
Without this anchor of our soul, when the waters of trials begin to rise, we will drown before we ever discover we have the ability to swim.
In this episode we will talk about the renaissance of hope and bring prophetic encouragement along with the most amazing, up close heart to heart with Cindy Jacobs.
Hey what's going on this is Jamil Stell. I help lead an incredible ministry called Central Valley Chia Alpha.
We have a college ministry on four different campuses. Man I enjoy listening to this podcast. It's so amazing.
Sean and Christa Smith keep it so relevant, keep it so real, keep it so revelatory.
I know every time I listen to this podcast it's like having a personal one on one with Sean and Christa Smith.
I pray that you be blessed and that you grow and mature in your supernatural identity as you listen to this podcast.
Hey what's up keep it 100 people. Hey everybody. Hey I'm Sean and I'm Christa and we are coming at you this week on our podcast.
Super excited about some thoughts we have on this whole theme of renaissance of hope. I'm so excited about it.
Dr. King made this quote, if you lose hope somehow you lose the vitality that keeps life moving.
You lose that courage to be that quality that helps you go on in spite of it all.
We really need it because this has been a tough week with the tragic conflict and incident that took place in Kenosha, Wisconsin
involving policemen, African American, Jacob Blake and just the ramifications of what that means to that man, his family,
what it means to us as a nation. It just kind of makes your heart sick because we so want to strive to become what God wants us to be as a nation.
It seems like in many respects we keep getting tripped up over this thing of racism and we know that there is an answer.
We also know that there has been hurricanes so Hurricane Laura's hit the borders of Louisiana and Texas and it's released grade four level hurricane.
So true and you know that I'm thinking of all moms and dads that are having to rearrange their whole lives now they're teachers.
For all the kids that aren't going back to school they're now doing homeschooling and so everything has shifted.
Worlds have turned upside down and there is just a stress and there is an overwhelming where you can just feel people just cowering in the under the pressure of today.
And at the same time we're entering into that election time where you can see the vitriol and the situations where people are getting really petty in many respects in social media.
It's almost like our sixth episode where we talked about clap back casting shade and criticism.
And as I've just saw online even things not relating to the election I've just seen different people post and all of a sudden people twist what they say and just attack them on social media and people that I love and I just go that's not them that's not their heart.
What is going on where there's that level of animosity.
So true like you said at the beginning we're titling this episode the Renaissance of hope because everything we're talking about we need to have a collision with hope once again.
This is so important because real hope arises precisely in these moments when hopelessness and despair seems most likely come on to those moments that God brings real hope.
I love that you have a revelation of what God is saying in this season.
I feel like it's been really a heavy time and so I've just been seeking God.
I've just been like God what are you saying in the midst of this we need to hear you we don't need just another opinion we need to hear your word Lord and.
I heard the Lord begin to remind me of Elijah.
We read about this in 1 Kings 18 and 19 and here's in the midst of a famine time for three years the prophets have been quiet and then God finds Elijah and he says go to Ahab and challenge the false prophets and it's time to declare once and for all who is the one true God.
And so Elijah does this he goes and he challenges and there's this incredible display of the power of God because the false prophets of course called on their false God and of course he didn't show up because he's dead.
And so Elijah calls on the one true God and God shows up and Elijah defeats the false prophets of Baal and it's this incredible display of the power of God right.
So in this major Mount Carmel incredible moment within 24 hours he's fleeing for his life and he's fleeing for his life because Jezebel got word of what happened and she said I'm going to kill you.
So here's this powerful man of God who just walked in the greatest authority and then with one false accusation and one lie once again from Jezebel like I'm going to kill you.
He goes and flees for his life and he's afraid and he runs to a cave and God brought me there to this portion of scripture and that Elijah this powerful man of God was hiding and he was afraid for his life.
And this is a guy who just saw God come through in the most powerful way and God asked Elijah this question.
It's the same question I think he is asking all of us right now and he's like what are you doing here.
Meaning what are you doing in the cave Elijah.
I didn't call you to the cave. I called you to oppose the darkness. I didn't call you to hide from the darkness.
That's good.
And I felt like we've been in a bit of a cave and the cave looks like stress. The cave looks like anger. The cave looks like depression. It looks like being overwhelmed.
It looks like accusation. It's just like these caves that we find ourselves in and for some of us it's just like we've almost wanted to hide because it's felt so intense.
It's felt so heavy and I felt like God's like no, no, no, this is not the time to hide.
This is the time to stand and declare and when Elijah came out of the cave he said a very interesting statement.
He's like God I'm the only one that's still standing. I'm the only one that's still worshiping you.
They all tore down your your altars. They don't worship you. They broke covenant with you.
I'm the only one that's still worshiping you and God's like actually in first Kings 1918 he says yet I have reserved.
7000 in Israel all whose knees have not bowed to Baal and what God was saying in that moment to Elijah was you're not alone.
And 7000 is enough to do what I have planned to do and it was really cool because a couple weeks ago we were at a service with Cindy and she whips out the same portion of scripture
and it was exactly what I heard the Lord say and I just loved the way she said it because she just declared 7000 is enough for God to do what he's going to do.
And I just want to release that hope over you because I felt like when I was brought to that portion of scripture my heavy heart had a collision with hope.
My heavy heart needed to be reawakened that it's not about everyone being exactly in alignment with God.
God's like 7000 is enough. I'm bringing hope and get out of the cave and get back in position.
And the last thing that I felt like the Lord said to me that I want to share with you today because again I want this word to release hope to you.
This is about a renaissance of hope in the midst of darkness and that was this that God told Elijah I'm not done yet.
I need you to still go anoint Jay who's going to be the next King who will ultimately defeat Jezebel's house.
And then I need you to go anoint Elijah who's going to replace you as the prophet.
And there was a double portion that Elijah had to give to the next generation.
And I feel like God's like come on you're not done living out who I've called you to be.
You're not done releasing the portion that I've called your life to release.
There is still a life to be lived and we are in such uncertain times but please let us not lose sight that God still has a story and a narrative that he is writing.
And it is full of hope because if God is writing our story and he is he is writing the story that it is full of hope.
And I just feel like even right now let us be like an Elijah and get back in position.
I think that's so powerful.
And one of the things that I believe that you've really communicated is that Elijah came on the scene out of Tishby which means captivity.
He came out of captivity to begin with and then after Jezebel unleashed what she unleashed he went back into a level of captivity.
But what God gave him in that moment was a renaissance of hope.
And the reason why that's important is that we always need a full perspective of what God is doing in our generation.
So that's what the revelation of the 7000 and the people he was supposed to anoint would take down Jezebel.
That was so powerful.
Keep Your 100 Tribe I can't believe the moment we're about to have.
This amazing general has authored 9 books that has been translated into 30 languages.
She has spoken over 100 nations.
She has prophesied and prayed with world leaders and has been a pioneer in the prophetic ministry and the prayer movement.
She is also a champion of women.
I want you to welcome to Keep Your 100 Mama Cindy Jacobs.
We're super excited to have you here Cindy.
Thanks so much for just taking time and just talking with us to have you here on Keep It 100 is such a privilege.
Because not only have you impacted Shana and I's life so deeply and personally, you've impacted millions of people.
And again, we're just reminded of when you say yes to God, it's amazing how he'll bring people in your path just to constantly remind you of what you've imparted and how it's impacted so many people more than you'll ever know.
Right?
There were such a God synergy that we had today.
You know, we came to pray over the Bay Area, California, where you all live.
My husband Mike and I and we just felt we needed to pray.
Racial equity, a lot of things we were praying in the Bay and it was so good.
Yeah, and so we just kept walking into one supernatural encounter after the other.
It was amazing, wasn't it?
It's awesome, I love it. We just saw like the God winks and God kisses throughout the whole day.
But I just love that's what your life's been full of, right?
I mean, we've been sharing stories and just hearing your stories.
But through the years, especially you and Sean, you know, have known each other for years.
You've discipled me from afar, but through Mary and Sean, I've gotten to know you more, which has been such a privilege.
And that's so true, Mama Cindy.
From the first time you prophesied over me in 96.
But from that point on, just it seems like every year I've just had more and more opportunities to see what a blessing you are.
So I'm so excited. So we're going to dive right in this.
So Mama Cindy, the first question, what were your early prophetic experiences as a child to help you blossom into the prophetic minister that you are today?
You know, what's really interesting because when you're in the moment, it doesn't seem so supernatural when you're doing these things.
Right.
But it just happens and it's just, you know, then later on you look by and go, oh my goodness, like I believe I said that or whatever.
My first time was when I was four.
I'll never forget, we were in Fort Worth, Texas.
My dad was graduating from seminary there.
And my parents had decided they weren't having any more children.
You know, it was just my brother and I, that was enough.
And so I remember distinctly, you know, where I was standing, I looked at my mother and I said, I'm going to have a little baby sister.
Wow.
Yeah, can you imagine?
Four years old.
And my mother looks at me in that maternalistic way moms do and you know, they're just like, yeah, right?
You know, sweetheart, you know what you're talking about.
She's like, shh.
She wants to let me down easy, right?
Right, right.
And so she says, no, honey, you are the last one.
Well, she was pregnant with my little sister.
Wow.
And she didn't know she was pregnant.
You know, she used to tell my little sister, hey, you could have been rejected feeling, you know, but I prepared the way for you.
You owe me luck, you know, chocolate, chocolate is a big sister.
I remember when I was 12, I started having all these dreams of hell night after night.
It was crazy.
Like I would see people's flesh like burning off them and then coming back on them again, you know, just over and over and I hear their screams.
Whoa.
And I never even told my parents.
I remember it was just like something God and me and from that day I knew hell was real.
And I didn't want anybody to go there.
Wow.
You know, and I just determined to the best of my ability, whoever I saw, somehow I was going to reach out to them and let them know about the love of Christ.
Hmm.
That's so powerful.
Yeah.
So I would just have these moments our people would call and I'd say, oh, so and so just died.
I mean, when the phone was ringing.
Wow.
My goodness.
It was a strange child.
Right.
Your parents were like, who is this child?
Yeah.
I honestly had to have seen on you a special touch from the Lord.
Yeah.
But you know, we were Baptist.
We had no grid for this kind of strange behavior.
I remember preaching this little country church in Texas and I was preaching about good old boys coming to church on Sunday party in the rest of the week.
Good old boys.
Yeah.
And I looked at this cowboy and I said, you know, you've got a keg in the back of your truck and you know, you just been doing a kick party.
And like, here you are.
This guy, I mean, he had to come to Jesus moment.
Wow.
So and he really dramatically got changed.
Wow.
Yeah.
Put the fear of the Lord in him.
And what I love too, Mama Cindy, is that you've been a pioneer in the prophetic movement.
I know this about you because I've been around you.
Even we had probably about four different divine appointments where you prayed and witnessed to people on the streets.
And a lot of times, you know, what's so refreshing is you see people that they'll exercise their gift in front of thousands.
But they're too busy or occupied in the day to day.
And it's like I was touched in my heart the way you just throughout this day just minister to people on the street.
It was really powerful.
A second question I want to ask you is what has God been speaking to you about this season or this season we're about to enter into?
I know there are a lot of listeners that really feel a bit confused as to what God is saying.
Well, you all know that God gave this group of prophets we meet with this word reset.
And God meant it.
I'm going to reset the globe.
How big is God?
So, you know, whether some people say, oh, this is a judgment from God or what I just tend to think God is saying like, think about your life.
You think you have everything worked out.
You know, all of us kind of feel like that.
We don't realize how we just kind of get it going.
And we think right where we're doing this for God.
And then he just like screeches to a halt.
And so he is calling us to reset our life.
We're talking about meeting people on the street.
I've seen about Zacchaeus.
God reset Zacchaeus life.
Jesus comes in 19 and he first of all, he does the prophet thing.
He looks up and he's got this guy's name.
Yes.
I was like, wow, the worst center.
The chief tax collector.
The one who stole everybody's money.
And he's up in the street.
The first thing Jesus says, come on now, I'm going to stay in your house.
But somehow that was what Zacchaeus needed.
Right.
You know, so Jesus didn't say, come down here.
You know, fire is going to call from heaven if you don't repent.
Get on your knees right now.
You know, Jesus called his name.
He knew it.
Wow.
He knew it.
Come on.
So what happened?
There's this Bible verse I love guys.
The kindness of God leads us to repent.
Yeah.
I always tell people, get a prophesy, prophesy to the wilderness and somebody's soul.
That thing they need to know.
We were prophesying over a precious young man today.
And you know, it was just so refreshing.
And he started to tell me his story of the racism, you know, that he suffered in Georgia.
God stopped everything.
And then at that same moment, we were just felt like we should go in and look at these
houses or whatever.
And that's when this lady came out and we said, well, can we pray for you too?
And all of a sudden she recognized me.
Her mother had just sent her a word that it gave over Bolivia that was a real change agent.
That's so crazy.
For that nation.
I mean, like today she got that.
And of all the places in the East Bay area, we go there.
Come on.
Right.
God collided us together with his love and mercy.
And I just want to say to you listeners, this is that kind of moment for you.
I mean, we're sitting here in the studio and I feel a presence of God, you know, right now.
It's like, it is not by chance.
You are listening right now.
Maybe you feel hopeless, maybe you're suicidal, you know, whatever is going on.
God knows what's going on.
Yes, he does.
He cares about what's going on.
I mean, just like he led us, tell him, Sean, tell him about like when we prayed on Berkeley
and then what happened after that?
Because that's so good.
This happened to us today, guys.
We walked UC Berkeley.
Anyone that knows the history of UC Berkeley knows it's been a leading liberal voice, not
always for positive things.
And so as we got finished praying, we happened to turn and walk and about five Christian students
walked up to us and wanted to take a survey and for us to be able to pray with them, encourage
them.
Mama Cindy had prophetic words over all of them.
They were blown away, but it was just incredible.
And then we go right from there to a guy that's obviously down in his luck, that's on the
side of the curb.
And Mama Cindy reaches out to him.
We end up buying this guy some food and feeding him and this guy was grateful on all this.
This is really anyone that knows Berkeley knows those are the two worlds that must collide,
that young Christian voice and the fact that there has been such a need in that city.
And then we pray there as it relates to kind of the roots, beliefs and drug addiction and
even the witchcraft.
So it was profound today.
You know, I love what you said that the kindness of the Lord brings us to repentance.
It's probably one of my favorite verses as well, because I feel like, you know, there's
everyone has different experiences as to how they've come to God.
And many people have experienced almost a shame and from their past decisions or their
choices they've made, there's a shame that they have found themselves back to God, but
they haven't experienced the freedom of the Lord.
But I believe it's the kindness that keeps us, right?
Because you can have a moment where you feel bad and ashamed and obviously shame is not
from God, shame is from the enemy, for there's no condemnation in Christ Jesus, right?
There's conviction to turn away from our sins, but the condemnation doesn't come from God,
but yet people stay in that place because they haven't experienced the kindness.
And what I love, Cindy, that you bring as a prophet is the kindness of God, because I
was exposed to prophetic voices growing up that were not a lot.
It often exposed people where you felt like as a person, oh, dear God, don't let the prophet
call me out, because there was maybe an unintentional shame that got released because you didn't
know if your stuff was going to call that and we're all imperfect.
What I love about your gift, and maybe you can speak to that, how did you come to the
revelation of speaking to the wilderness and how did you come to the revelation of the kindness
of Lord as a prophet?
Well, I think you're brokenness.
You know, I just saw a lot of stuff growing up in the church and it was painful.
Yeah, I remember one time, I'm going to say this publicly, the women's missionary union
voted I should break up with my Catholic boyfriend.
I mean, they actually had an actual vote.
My dad's telling me, he's a pastor.
He did make me break up with him, but I want you to know that the women's missionary union
had a vote today that you should break up with Joe.
And I could have gotten really bitter or just think the church were all hypocrites.
But I think it was because of my daddy, you know, my mom, kind of the life they lived.
I knew better than that.
I knew it just needed to make me love more.
You know, can you love the unlovely?
Yeah.
The Bible says it's easy to love those who love you.
But the Bible says I love your enemies.
Do good to those people, you know, essentially, or despite, use you kind of, they treat you
really bad.
And then who are you then?
But I get back to the story of Zacchaeus at a Luke 19 after Jesus said, I'm going to stay with you.
I mean, this no self-respecting rabbi, you know, a biblical scholar would tell you would ever go to the home
of someone like this chief tax collector.
Right.
But it caused, because of Zacchaeus influence, and I mean, Jericho was an amazing commercial city at that time.
The caravan comes through, have to pay a tax, you know, before they go into Jerusalem.
It also helped eradicate poverty.
He said, I'm going to give half of what I have before.
Wow.
Yeah.
Imagine.
That was a lot of wow.
So you think about that.
You think about how many people, you know, maybe you're listening and your opinion of Christians is not very high.
Well, I don't blame you for that.
But the point is, when you totally fall in love with Jesus,
That's right.
You're not going to be a bad actor.
You know, you're not going to be one of these, you know, I'm ready to tell you, you're going to hell next.
Right.
True.
But that doesn't make you, you know, feel loved by God.
Yes.
Right.
You know, it's so true.
You know, when I gave my life to Christ, it was in that moment that knowing I had come out of this immorality,
but the first thing Jesus says to me when he shows in my room, I'll be a father to the fatherless.
And there was no other thing he could say to me.
He had me completely.
He could have asked anything of me in that moment and I was willing to do it.
And it was a dramatic shift.
But you're right in the kind of the grand psychology, if you will, of the Godhead to exercise kindness and love when kind of like you should be taken out to the tool shed,
causes, I think, a heart to awaken with this appreciation that I think of everything I do now as part of a way,
a meager attempt of saying thank you to a God that had mercy on me.
And I love what you said because there is a hashtag church hurt movement.
A lot of people, you grew up in a church as a PK.
There's a lot of kids that have grown up like that.
And because they've got hurt and wounded, they've left.
But I think what gets overlooked in that moment is how much mercy God has had on you and people, they'll let us down, but Jesus never has.
And I always say, hey, if Jesus was the reason you went to church, you shouldn't let any man be the reason why you believe the church.
That's so good.
Wow.
You know, today we went to where the Black Panthers got their start.
You maybe can't tell, you know, because you can't see Sean and Christa, but he's black and she's white.
And of course, his history in this area, his father was shot to death through racist police, essentially.
So if anybody, you know, could really be bitter, but so we're studying about one of the founders of the Black Panthers about this guy, Huey Newton.
So we went to where the original headquarters was, but we were studying about this guy, Huey.
He was brilliant.
Incredible.
He could even read when he graduated from high school and he taught himself to read.
I mean, graduated from college and then I was just broken thinking, we lost Huey.
Yes.
You know, we lost him.
But yeah, I mean, you could have been one of those, Sean.
Yes.
You had a right, like in the natural.
And so we're going around, we were looking, you know, where he grew up and, you know, there's...
He went to the hood, y'all.
Where Tony's liquor store was and, you know, I mean, we're the hood, you know.
And I'm just thinking, you could have been Huey Newton, like with the Black Panthers.
You could have been that guy, but God reached out to you.
Yes.
You know.
We just want to reach out to you.
Whoever is listening.
I just, right now, I want to say to you, God loves you.
You may, you know, who knows, you might be the one that's listening.
You have a right to be mad.
But this is God just saying, hey, I love you.
I mean, I'm not like those people that did that.
You know, there's a lot of haters in the world, right?
Mm-hmm.
But I just thought today was a whole redemptive journey.
It was so amazing.
I love that.
You know, I think you look at life and there's so many people that God shows himself to them.
And then yet they experience the hypocrisy in the church and they connect what they're
seeing through people to be God.
And when you have a personal encounter, God allows that experience with people that is
so hypocritical and disappointing to be erased.
But until that encounter happens, so many people keep that hypocritical viewpoint of
that's God.
Mm-hmm.
And I think as a prophetic voice, there's such a, I feel like more than ever, responsibility
to a hurting, broken world that wants there to be a God.
They want to believe in God.
I believe there is a group of people that are like, I've seen so much hypocrisy.
I've been so disappointed.
I don't like the circumstances in my life.
There's no way God, if there is a God, he could even care about me.
But I just want to speak to listeners and say, I feel like God's going to actually encounter
you even as you listen to this podcast right now that you might feel forgotten or experienced
or people that have called themselves Christians have been so contradicting to a God that others
have preached about you haven't experienced that God.
And I feel like God is going in a great way, sending prophets, sending evangelists, sending
his disciples that are so overcome with the love of God and the kindness of God.
They're breaking the shame of hypocrisy and they're bringing the message of redemption
and hope.
And I feel like people are like, what in the heck's going on?
Everything feels unsettled and I feel like God's like, he didn't say COVID.
Absolutely not.
God hates racism.
Racism is demonic.
It's evil.
And yet I'm seeing God move through all of it, through all the junk.
And I feel like he's encountering people in such a beautiful way right now of bringing hope,
bringing redemption, bringing restoration in a time of stillness and time of unpredictability.
We're seeing God use people to bring a new message of redemption to his people.
And I feel like you, Cindy, is one of those redemptive prophetic gifts, speaking hope into the wilderness,
speaking hope into the valleys.
And nationally we're in a valley.
Worldwide we're in a valley right now.
What would you say just prophetically as a prophet to the valley of America right now?
God's trying to marriage what we call righteousness and justice right now.
On one side just saying, well, can't you see the injustice?
Are you so blind?
We're hurting.
Other people are hurting.
And especially, I think you remember, Sean, one time I preached a message called the Justice League.
Yes.
And I said, well, where are the wonder women of today?
Whatever, that was crazy.
I love that by the way.
Yeah, crazy.
And I'm going to the youth, like, which one of you wore a red cape and tried to fly around
when you were little and, you know, all this stuff.
Yeah, you did.
The Wonder Woman T-shirt.
The Wonder Roots.
Anyway, I want to say to you, God is working something so deep into your heart right now.
He is your stability.
He is with you in changing times.
And I feel like even with me, God was digging so deep in my human soul.
What makes you feel okay?
And I want to say to you that you are okay.
And right now, in this time, we're at a hinge of history.
We're at a hinge of civilization in the United States.
I mean, we're either going to go down into an abyss economically in every which way.
And that includes race relationship-wise, you know, sleep.
But, you know, we've got to get the justice, but we've got to see the righteousness.
We've got to have a holiness movement too.
And marry the two.
And I believe there is a marriage of righteousness and justice, Psalm 89-14.
You know, I listened to some of the white Republicans, you know, and they're just saying,
well, this isn't right and this is right.
Come on, this is, can't you see, can't you see?
But there are people that are hurting and there's a lot of pain and they're going,
can't you feel my pain?
Can't you feel it?
Don't you care?
I'm hurting.
I'm supposed to bring this divine collision where he goes, I care.
You know, I'm here.
And I think we've got to have this reset as a nation.
The Lord told me in the beginning of COVID, he said, if you will take away pointing the finger,
but saying somebody's got to blame, you're going to pay and you are to blame.
No, let's work together.
Okay.
Only together can we fix this.
It's a lot of times we think somebody's got to be the bad guy.
That's not the way it works because really we've all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
There's no good guys.
But when we come to Jesus, you know, he is our peacemaker or leveler.
You know, I think the picture of what you're giving so profound, Mama Cindy,
and I felt like the Lord gave me a picture, you know, some would look at Christianity in the natural
and think that this could be a dark time for us.
Many churches are closed, some that are open, their limitations, all these different things.
So people could say that, hey, this could look like a dark moment.
But I actually think it's one of our greatest opportunities.
And the picture I got was when Jesus was in the garden, he was being taken captive.
You know, the Roman centurions came and grabbed him.
And then Peter, like sometimes I feel like the overzealous component of Christianity picks up a sword
and slices off a Roman centurion's ear.
The guy's name was Malchus.
But what Jesus did is he reached on the ground and put Malchus ear back on.
And I feel like overzealous, maybe non-empathetic Christianity has cut off the ear of America
where they're not hearing.
And what I believe it's going to call for is that a new Jesus prophetic movement
is putting the ear back on America to hear our gospel.
And I feel like there are many people right now listening.
God is reaching down and using His Spirit and people to put your ear back on
just in time for you to get a message of hope, a message of redemption,
a message that in the midst of the darkest time you could experience the greatest light
because that's what Jesus is all about.
Is that God can take a hopeless situation and bring hope.
Whereas the world takes a hopeful situation and makes it hopeless.
Yeah, a renaissance of hope.
Ooh, renaissance of hope.
I love it.
Yeah, I mean, it's like in the renaissance things were new and creative.
And so, you know, can we be new and creative and find new ways to bring hope to the homeless?
Then people are going to want to run to Jesus.
They're going to come and so it's like every day wherever we are walking,
did I bring hope to that person?
Did I bring value to that person?
I think I was telling you guys today, I was going around that my daddy, my preacher daddy,
was, you know, he'd been a gang member in New York and Hell's Kitchen, got radically saved.
But he would, we'd go down the street and he'd point to that drunk on the street,
said, for the grace of God that you, Cindy Jacobs, since you ever judge them.
Don't be judging.
You know, as we say today.
And, you know, we were looking at these guys, you know, asking for food or whatever today.
And I just thought, what if that was me?
It's like you can get so hard-hearted.
I just want to stop and pray for the listeners right now.
Father, I pray for people listening who have no hope.
Yes.
And you're just, just as you're listening to this, this is a God collision in your life.
I mean, just at this moment, this podcast is for you.
You are not without somebody to care for you.
Jesus cares for you.
I feel as if I was sitting in the room with you and just giving you this hug.
I believe love is coming right into your heart right now.
That was amazing.
So good.
So rich.
Keep it 100 tribe.
We want to bring you some takeaways that we think will help you.
And we feel like what hope does is God uses hope to enable your unables.
So we want to give you some hope pointers.
Hope pointer number one, hope provides each of us with an insulation against anxiety and despair.
No matter what age you live in, no matter what generation you came up in, you have reason to have those moments of anxiety and those moments of despair, those circumstances of life that seem to teeter out of control.
But what happens in those moments is God has given you a reserve tank, often in our lives when we find ourselves in situations where we do not know what to do.
It is in those moments that hope gives us an insulation, that the anxiety and despair doesn't seem to cut away at who we are in terms of our identity or our emotional reserve.
And I found for me, Christa, my greatest growth has come when I reach the end of my resources and I look to God because he becomes that one that gives me hope.
That's an insulation against anxiety and despair.
I love that.
Number two, hope stabilizes you in the storm.
Friends, if you don't have hope, all you see is the storm.
But when you have hope, hope gives you an X-ray vision to see through it.
And what I love about that is so many times in my life when I have felt like the storm of life is all around me.
I have been able to rise above the storm and still see what God has promised, what he has prophesied, what he's declared.
And my eyes are still setting on the gaze of his face and the gaze of what he has prophesied over my life.
And as I root myself in the hope of God, I don't let the storm overwhelm me.
I let his hope infuse me.
Number three, is hope never allows your trials to have the final say.
Keep it 100 tribe.
I want an appeal right now to that fighter inside of you, that you have to fight.
You're not going to let the devil have a final say as it pertains to your life or your destiny.
And what hope does is hope realizes that it's not going to end with the devil winning.
In a scripture passage, my grandmother, she would pray over me the 23rd Psalm.
And I remember at one point in Psalms 23 where it says,
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.
And I think what's the darkest place you can ever get?
Psalms 23 calls it the valley of the shadow of death.
But think about it, in order for there to be a shadow, there had to have first been a light.
So even that passage is saying, when you're in a place of death, light is following you.
So it's not just the fact that there's a light at the end of the tunnel.
That's what the world says.
But in the kingdom, there's a light following you in that tunnel.
So good.
All right.
Number four, hope is our conviction of God's unlimited solutions.
I love this guy is not limited.
He is limitless.
And even though we can't figure it out, we can't see a way out.
God is working in ways we can't even imagine or foresee.
Job four, five says, integrity of ways yields hope.
Meaning when you and I walk in integrity, integrist living gives you the promise that God will come through for you,
that you can count on his unlimited solutions.
And here's truth.
If your hope does not make a difference, then it's not hope that's rooted in God.
God's hope always makes a difference.
Fifth and final hope pointer is kingdom hope is unique to Christianity.
It cannot be received outside of being a child of the most high God today in our world.
You need to know that there's someone you can trust, someone you can believe in,
someone who is consumed with your well being, someone who is powerful enough and has the resources to secure you in the midst of an insecure world.
His name is Jesus.
And it's so important that if you have a relationship with God, you need to be reminded as a son and a daughter.
It's your birthright to be children of hope.
And if you do not know the Lord, right now you can ask Jesus to be Lord of your life.
And when you do, he gives you a hope you can't get any other place.
And I love Psalms 3419 that says, many are the afflictions of the righteous for the Lord delivers them out of them all.
That if you know your righteous, you know your deliverance will come.
To the Keep It 100 tribe, thanks so much for tuning in.
We love being with you every week.
Continue to make sure and subscribe so you're alerted as soon as new episodes drop every single Tuesday.
Rate, review and refer to your friends because we want more people impacted for Jesus.
Check us out at www.SeanAndChristasmith.com during the week.
And of course, find us on Facebook at Sean and Christosmith Ministries.
Make sure you tune in next week as we talk about supernatural resiliency, the art of bouncing back.
I'm so excited about this topic because as you and I both know, sometimes life can knock you down
and many people don't seem to get back up or even fully recover.
But next week, we're going to give you some secrets on how to get your bounce back.