1st Corinthians 13 :13

¹³ And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

Every day, every man lives their life on hope. The day you stop hoping is the day you start dying. Hope is a crucial element of our existence on the earth. Hope is a crucial element of our belief in God, of our following Jesus. We all need hope. Every day, we are looking for something to be hopeful about. Something to look forward to. We have hope for so many things. Hope is what we must hold on to as believers so that we can live each day with renewed strength.

In Matthew 19:27, that’s why Apostle Peter asked, we have left all, what shall we have? He was asking a crucial question of hope. What is our hope? What are we looking forward to? What is that thing we can hold on to, that can keep us going? If there is nothing to look forward to, we start dying. Everything around us begins to lose meaning. The reason we are still alive and here and able to wake up daily is because we still have hope. The reason why we can still lift our hands and worship and praise God as believers is because we still have hope that I didn’t come into Christ for nothing. Though I haven’t seen this God face to face, I know He lives.

What is this hope that we talk about? Hope is the feeling of trust, confidence, belief or expectation that something wished for can or will happen. It is also the virtuous desire for future good So, it goes a step beyond wishes, to a point of expectation, of belief and trust that what we wished for can and will happen. And every right-thinking person,  a right-thinking human hopes for good things, hopes for the best.

Hope is also actual thing wished for. So, hope is something that can be counted. It can be seen, it can be felt. It is tangible.

Proverbs 13:12

Hope deferred makes the heart sick, But when the desire comes, it is a tree of life.

To tell us how weighty this subject of hope is, the bible says hope deferred makes the heart sick.

Hope that is delayed, hope that is being dragged and is not coming to manifestation, the thing you wish for that hasn’t come can make the heart sick. And the bible says, guard your heart with all diligence because out of it springs the issues of life, meaning, if hope deferred makes the heart sick, the heart that springs the issues of life, the heart that is the central point of our life can be affected if hope is delayed. Because even biologically, the heart pumps blood so it stands as a central point of our existence both physically and spiritually. Hope deferred can affect the heart that the issues of life springs from.

 

And the bible says, when the desire comes, it is a tree of life. Can we see life? It is a tree of life. And what do trees do? They are rooted and they are meant to produce leaves, fruits. When you hope for something and it comes, it becomes a tree of life that will produce future hope in other things. Many have committed suicide because they let the devil tamper with their hope, they lost sight of their hope in anything. They lost that hold on what produces the tree of life.

I want us to link a couple of things together so that we will understand why hope is very important.

1st Corinthians 13:13 "And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love."

 

The bible categorized hope as one of the great things that will guard us in our journey with God. Faith, hope and love! Because hope gives life.  So, we must never lose sight of hope. Upon faith and love is hope, all these exist together. There is no faith without hope and there is no love without hope.

 

1 Corinthians 13:6-7: Does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

 

Love hopes all things. So, love exists in hope. In Romans 5:5, the Bible says: "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."

 

So, our hope will not be disappointed because of the love of God on which hope rests upon. Love hopes all things, all things

 

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. (Hebrews 11:1)

 

What is this saying to us? That for faith to exist, there must be hope that has gone ahead. So, in faith gives hope its substance. Your faith gives hope weight.

 

Another version says: Hebrews 11:1 Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. So, faith gives our hope assurance that it will come. Hope is like a foundation. Faith is the building resting on the foundation.

 

Many of us have hope and we think we have faith. They are two words that might be easily confused. We said earlier form our definition of hope, that hope is what we wish for that can or will happen. But faith is a belief that it must happen or it shall happen. Hope is still uncertain in a way, but we need hope to transit to faith. Hope has to do with the desires of our heart, an expectation of what we want to see. But faith gives hope a foundation, a solid backing. We sometimes feel we have faith but what we have is hope.

 

But we must note that there is no faith without hope. So, hope is a necessary tool for your faith to strive. Faith is believing, without doubt that it will come. Faith is I may neither see the wind or the rain but the valley will be full of water. Hope is I desire that this valley will be full but there is no substance to it. Faith works but hope may fail. We can desire something but it may not come, but that desire is a fuel you need for your faith. Once you let that desire sit in well, that expectation sit in well, what can happen is that your faith is fueled if you let it.

 

For example, we can say I pray that this country will get better but deep inside, we are afraid that even if God will open the widows of heaven, can things work? And when we discuss with people we discuss our fears because there is no substance. That is hope. But faith tells you that this country will be better. There is an aligning of your thoughts and your speech. Your whole being believes it.

 

So sometimes, we feel our faith is not working, the bible says faith without works is dead. But we don’t have faith or perhaps, our faith is little. We only have hope. What the Holy Spirit was brooding in my spirit is that Faith works, faith has evidence. Instead of us saying I have faith that this will happen, we should say I have hope because our hope has not transited to faith but it must transit. But remember, faith is the substance of things hoped for, so we need hope for our faith to build on. We are talking about hope because it is a principal tool for our faith to rise.

 

If you give up hope, you start dying physically, emotionally, nothing makes sense anymore. Everyone needs to be reminded from time to time of the hope that is in God daily so that we do not lose heart. If we will keep on following Jesus and stay in the journey of faith, it is because our hope is still alive. Like Peter, we can ask, what shall we have? And when we grasp it, then we must believe it and transit to faith

 

So, why should we guard our hope jealously? Why must we not lose heart?

 

Proverbs 23:18: "For Surely there is a hereafter (a future), and your hope will not be cut off."

 

There was a reason the Bible says this. In verse 17, of that Proverbs 23, it said, Do not let your heart envy sinners, But be zealous for the fear of the Lord all day. 

So that we know that our belief, our trust in God is not in vain. All we are doing in Christ is never in vain. There is no need for the envy of the world. There is a future, there is a hope.

 

Jeremiah 29:11

“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.”
 

This is talking about the gain we will have by maintaining our hope and belief in God. It is talking about this life. This earth! Because it is on the earth that we can have sinners and envy exists, right? In this life, there is something we must be hopeful about. But it is a double package, here and then after this life on the earth.

 

1 Corinthians 15: 19

If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men the most pitiable.

The bible says, if our hope is only in this world, we are of all men most miserable.

1 Peter 1:3-5

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept  by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

This was the same Apostle Peter that was asking in the past, what shall we have? He is the same one writing now that, this way that he chose to follow truly is not a waste of time. He was thanking God that we have been born again into a living hope that Christ rose to give us. That’s why Apostle Paul could say, I have fought a good fight, I have kept the faith and there is awaiting me a crown, something. I know there is something for me.

 

There is hope in Jesus. The bible says a living hope, not a dead hope. So, hope can be dead. And that is the kind of hope that is sourced wrongly in what the world gives. Hope that is in Christ is a living hope. When we have faith in Christ, however, we have hope not only in this life, but even hereafter. The future, while uncertain, can be entrusted to God, and He will help us through. Those who are kept by the power of God, telling us that, it’s not even in our own strength to keep ourselves. We need to continually depend on the power of God for our hope to stay alive.

 

Our second definition of hope is the actual thing we desire. So, it can be tangible, felt, seen. And since Christ is alive, so hope can be alive. Hope is Christ. Hope is living because Christ is living. This is to spur us on in our journey in Christ that yes! There is a hope and it will not be cut off. And it’s a double-edged hope.

 

Will having hope come easy? Because many times, things won’t add up either in life or our walk with God. But if we will remain alive in this world and in God, we must have hope, we must hold on to something tenaciously and by God’s grace, let it transit to faith. With a  living hope we won’t sink into that depressive point that life begins to lose meaning. We must rise. We have  a living hope in Christ.

 

So, does it mean that because we are hopeful, we will be excited or joyful? No! I want us to see something in scripture. In Romans 15:13, the Bible says: “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.”

 

Romans 12:12
“Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer.”

What these verses are saying to us is that it is possible to be hopeful and not joyful but that joy is necessary if we will continually abound in hope. If our hope will be alive. The bible says, God is the God of Hope.  And He is able to fill us with joy and peace. So, He wants us to be hopeful  and still be joyful even though its possible not to have joy in hope.

So, we are encouraged to rejoice in hope. You have hope yes! Now add joy to it so that it can stay, it can abound. Joy is a necessary fuel to keep your hope alive. Let’s not that importantly.

So, what should be our disposition?  

Psalm 42:11

Why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God; For I shall yet praise Him, The help of my countenance and my God.

 

The writer of that Psalm had to speak to himself, Hope in the Lord! Many at times, we might need to speak to ourselves, speak to our hearts -Hope in the Lord! For I will yet praise Him. I know for sure that I will yet praise Him. My soul, why are you so cast down? Hope in the Lord. There is something we need to look forward to.

 

In fact in that Psalm 42, the writer had to say it twice to himself, hope in the Lord!  In verse 5 and verse 11

 

This is to say to us that, we might need to repeatedly say it till our soul understands it. For the writer of this Psalm, it was a case of people asking, where is your God? This God that you carry on your head, this God that you say is alive, that he is taking care of you, where is he? And the writer said, my soul, there is no time to be down casted, hope in the Lord! This is our disposition. This is how we can move toward the direction of the tree of life. I don’t think anything in this world gives hope, but this is our confidence, that the one that called us is faithful.

Secondly, asides speaking to ourselves. We need to meditate on what God says in these promises from Scripture and find lasting hope in a world that can feel hopeless.

 

Psalm 119:114

 

You are my hiding place and my shield; I hope in Your word.

I want us to look at some Scriptures to further encourage ourselves:

 

Hebrews 10:23

Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful.

 

Lamentations 3:21-24

“But this I recall to mind, therefore I have hope: Through the Lord’s mercies we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. The Lord is my portion, says my soul, Therefore I hope in Him”

This was a man afflicted, but he recalled. He said this thing gives me hope, that by the Lord’s mercies , his compassion, his faithfulness fails not.

 

Psalms 147:11

11 the LORD delights in those who fear him, who put their hope in his unfailing love.

We can hope in the unfailing love of God. In whatever it is, let’s have hope, let’s keep hope alive. It’s the bedrock on which love and faith stands. Its critical for living on the earth and in Christ.  And according to Ephesians 1:18 says, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints. I pray that the eyes of our understanding will be enlightened.

And let’s always remember,

Proverbs 23:18

 For Surely there is a hereafter (a future), and your hope will not be cut off.

 

I pray that the Lord will grant us help and grace in Jesus name.

Thanks for the gift of your time, I am Benedicta Apeh!

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