In today’s live stream and podcast, Serena Gallagher unpacks Isaiah 60:1-7 as a template for having hope. Through this teaching, Serena opens up a revelation of how knowing the truth of God’s character and His Word is then knowing God’s goodness in the midst of any darkness that might surround. For that to be a consistent change agent in our lives, we need templates. A template is an example that is useful in knowing what something should look like or how it works. Good teachers will always provide their students with a template for them to look to, to gain further understanding on a particular topic. God is the most masterful teacher, who has always provided templates for us to see what the Kingdom looks like. For example, His creation is a template. An Old testament example of a template is the story of Abraham and Isaac. In this story we see the gospel narrative. The Father sacrifices His only son for the sake of the world, or in this case in a model of obedience. Jesus used parables as templates to teach us in the New Testament. As “God students” we need to see a model for Kingdom life, so we know what the template is. In the prophetic book of Isaiah we see not only the mandate for Kingdom life, but Kingdom hope. Friends, we can have confident hope that God’s dwelling place will have fruit that will cause our hearts to throb and swell with joy regardless of what is happening.