Dear friend,

If you’ve been around a while, you might have heard the 1965 hit song, “What the World Needs Now is Love.”

I think if a similar song were written today, it would be titled, “What the World Needs Now is Hope.”

I say this because I believe that the mass of humanity lives in despair about the state of the world. Each day brings more news that breeds fear, anxiety, and hopelessness.

This isn’t new, but it seems more pervasive than ever. In a world scarred by a life and livelihood-consuming pandemic, rising crime, inflation, wars, fleeing refugees, climate fears, and the moral insanity sweeping our culture, some people have come to regard hope as delusional.

Christians shouldn’t be surprised by this. The Bible describes those who live in this world apart from Christ as living “in this world without God and without hope” (Ephesians 2:12).

It is because they live without God that they are without hope. Their focus is on this world only. And without a biblical hope the best they can do is to try to work up some sort of man-centred optimism that believes we can somehow save ourselves.

The kind of hope they lack is the confident assurance of Christ restoring all things and taking us to be with Him for eternity. “We look forward with hope to that wonderful day when the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, will be revealed” (Titus 2:13).

As believers we understand and emphasize that we are to be characterized by faith and love. But we are also to be characterized by hope. Hope is one of the three fundamental elements of Christian character (1 Corinthians 13:13). Along with faith and love it designates the essence of Christianity.

This is a hope that grounds us in peaceful, confident assurance regardless of the trials and troubles that we ourselves encounter.  It is a hope that anchors our souls, readies us for death, keeps us from conforming to the world and its values, and prompts others to look to us in their times of trouble. With that hope, Christians shine in a dark, despairing world.

Where do we find such a hope? It’s a by-product of hearing the Word. “The Scriptures give us hope and encouragement as we wait patiently for God’s promises to be fulfilled” (Romans 15:4). As Christians we need to continually hear the Word to keep our hope fervent.

This is why your partnership with us at Insight for Living Canada is so critical. Because of your faithful prayer and generous giving we are able to encourage believers and shine the light of hope through the preaching of God’s Word across our dark and confused country.

Without the proclamation of God’s Word, the light of believers’ hope can be dimmed and we can easily slide into discouragement and the world’s way of thinking. And if that happens the world will never see the light of hope that Christians are to carry and that the Gospel brings.

June 30 marks the end of our fiscal year and with that, the opportunity to achieve our financial goal of $230,000. Reaching this goal strengthens us to begin the new fiscal year in a strong position and continue sharing the message of hope with believers and others in our needy country.

I began by saying what the world needs now is hope. Friends, we have the source of that hope to share—God’s Word. If there’s ever a time people need hope it’s now. It’s when the world is darkest that hope shines the brightest.

Please continue to join with us in shining that light by sending a generous financial gift today.

Serving with you,

Steve Johnson

Executive Director

PS By sending your gift to Insight for Living Canada today you will be helping bring hope to people in despair.