Where Does My Hope Lie?
Have you ever noticed how easy it is to get out of bed when you are going somewhere fun, like a road trip, or to Dollywood, or wherever. You have something to look forward to. You have a means of motivation to get up and make whatever preparations for the trip you need to make. Remember when you were a little kid on Christmas morning, or even now, how early you got up. Nothing could keep you in that bed. You had an expectation of good things to come. You were excited. You believed that you had received what you had asked for for Christmas.
Jesus said that if we believe we will receive what we have asked for, we will receive it. So the first key to hope of any sort is simply to believe that what you desire will happen. How can we tell we believe something to be true? We have eager expectation it will come to pass. When we pray, can we get excited about the answer? If so, that's hope.
Where no hope is, there is no vitality, no vigor. There is no power. Paul said 3 things abide in the heart of a Christian: faith, hope, and love. These are all gifts and fruits of the Holy Spirit abiding within us
Romans 5:1 ¶ Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,
2 through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
3 And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance;
4 and perseverance, character; and character, hope.
5 Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.
6 ¶ For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.
7 For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die.
8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Faith is first, and brings in the other 2, hope and love. Without faith, it is impossible to please God. And love is the greatest of the 3. God is love, and his love working through us is a gift to others. And hope is his gift of joy and life to us. But hope is not always automatic. It is initiated by what? Tribulations! It says in the last passage tribulation leads to perseverance, to character, to hope.
Why would this chain of events lead to hope? For one thing, tribulation makes you look forward to what comes later. Jesus endured the cross, despising the shame, because of the joy that would be brought at the completion of things. What does it mean "despising the shame"? It means he didn't think too much about it, thought very little of it, had no big concern for it. Remember, hope does not put us to shame, it does not disappoint us, when our hope is in the everlasting Father, who poured out his love in our hearts by the Holy Spirit.
Secondly, all these events lead to hope because of who we become through the midst of trouble. If living for Jesus was easy, many more people would be doing it. In fact, some people come to Jesus thinking things will get easier. But they soon find out it isn't. People say crisis doesn't produce character, it only reveals it. While that may be true, it DOES also produce it, through perseverance. I've heard it said that necessity is the mother of invention, meaning that things are only invented if there seems to be some need that demands it. Likewise, perseverance only happens when there is resistance. When one has persevered, he sees the power of God being effective in him, causing him to endure through anything. Then, once he comes out the other side a better man, still with faith intact, he gets more joy, because his faith has been tested and still remains. He is assured more than ever that Christ is in him, the author and finisher of our faith. And the Bible says that Christ in us is the hope of glory!
Hope is indispensible to the disciple of Christ. If we desire to be like Jesus, be pure as he is pure, we must have hope within us. No hope means this; let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die. The most vile actions come from those who feel they have nothing to lose. When the devil was cast from heaven, he lost hope of ever being in favor with God again. And you see the destruction he brings in the lives of those who also feel they have no hope. But those who have hope don't give up. Those who have the certainty of eternity with Jesus have a reason to go on, a reason to follow him, a reason to care. They also have the ability to make a difference.
