You may have noticed, I've taken a short hiatus since Sister Sarah blew me away with that teaching on grace! I feel as if I should somehow apologize for not catching on the way I should have before now, but at the same time, I'm just pleased as you are to be living the life of Grace and mercy that Christ has afforded us. I hope this study blesses you, as much as it did me. Thanks to God for all the Pastors who are teaching that the Law of Sin and death has been done away with by the Spirit of Life! Halleluiah! Amen. The Spirit of Life has set me free from the law of sin and death! Amen!

I prefer the newness of life that the Saving Grace of Jesus Christ affords…not the old life of hardship from wrong choices that I have made. I recall those times as being very cold and lonely. And nothing compares to the new life I now have and the new person I am becoming.

This entry is about HOPE.

This hope is eternal, faith given by God both to encourage my brothers and sisters in Christ and to believe that God can help me do all things.

I won’t feel helpless, as those who are godless do. I must not groan as unbelievers do, who have no hope for the future. In spite of it all, God has ultimate control and will one day return to make everything right. That’s significant. There are no hopeless situations with God.

Leviticus 26:40-45 God shows that He has mercy upon those with a broken and contrite spirit, and that He will remember His promises to us if we confess our sins and return to him from wherever our sins have scattered us. God is slow to anger and rich in love, determined to help us to grow in any and all situations. God’s goal is to bring about continual growth in us, through every experience, be it hardship or outright blessing. We remain hopeful in suffering to see God’s merciful ways of relating to his people.  

Jeremiah 29:11-13 reinstates God’s love and goodness and holy intention to bless and not to harm us. This means that, even if we go through hardship, suffering, and pain, God will see us through that and bring upon us a Glorious conclusion. 11) “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. 12) Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. 13) You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.”

When Jairus’ daughter died, the servants came to him and said that he should not trouble Jesus further. But Jesus told him not to fear, only believe. (Mark 5:35-36) Hope and promise is the mind of Christ, not despair, confusion, and hopelessness.

Hope dictates that we have faith, the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. “For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” (2 Corinthians 4:18b) Realize, know, and meditate on the world beyond this, that unseen world in which life goes on forever! Believe, and do not doubt. Terrible illness, persecution and pain can be tolerated more easily if we remember this: that this life is not all that there is. Living in a place without sin and suffering is what awaits every believer, and the knowledge of this can help us live above the hardships of this life.

And so, it is not to placate us, this promise that life hereafter awaits us. It is to help us to endure the suffering that we face in this world.

For this life is only temporary, and that which awaits us is eternal.

Luke 18:35 portrays a beggar sitting by the wayside begging as Jesus passed by. This beggar heard that Jesus was passing by and cried out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”  This man was filled with hope because he knew and had faith that Jesus was the long-awaited Messiah. Jesus healed him because of the beggar’s faith that it could happen. He said, “Receive your sight; your faith has healed you.” Faith. That is the substance of things hoped for--hope being to desire something with confident expectation of its fulfillment.

1 Corinthians 15:54-56:

54) When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.”

55) “Where, O death is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting? 56) The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.”

Hope is all a part of the faith that Jesus, although crucified, rose again on the third day and made it possible for His own to follow Him into life eternal and become heirs to the glorious riches of Heaven!

Satan had seemed victorious at the fall of man in the Garden of Eden and when Jesus was crucified. But Christ won the victory by being obedient unto death on a cross, becoming a curse for us, so that the penalty of sin, which is death, could be paid and we could go free! This selflessness was what defeated the adversary.

Colossians 2:15: “And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.” This is the death and resurrection of Christ: that we as sinners could become children of God by the Power of the Holy Spirit and that His mind could renew us and our once-sinful nature. The old nature was evil, and it was crucified with Christ, the sinless Lamb/Son of God, and now we have a loving nature—not of ourselves, but by the power of the Holy Spirit. This is called Grace!

Hebrews 2:14-15 “Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death—and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.”

(Romans 6:5-11) We are united to Christ in both His death and resurrection; therefore we are no longer living a life of sin, but a life of service to God. We must count ourselves alive to God in Christ Jesus but dead to sin. Do not let sin reign in your mortal bodies, but offer yourselves to God as being brought from death to life, shunning evil and letting your bodies be instruments of righteousness.

Because of what Christ did on the cross, we stand “not guilty” before God. Now it is possible to live for Christ and not to be a slave to sin! This is reason for the hope we possess.

Romans 8:19-22

“The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. 20) For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21) that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.

22) We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.”

Because salvation is a gift from God, it is not something that is earned! Yes, there must be a choice made on our part. But the divine appointment of our calling was destined by God for us from before the foundations of the earth were ever formed!

Also, the present state of the world need not give us a pessimistic or negative outlook about it; we must have hope for its future glory. The new heaven and new earth that is coming and the new order that will free the world from decay and frustration, sin and death should be exciting to contemplate for all believers! For now, however, our calling is to heal bodies and souls and to fight the effects of sin in the world.

1 Thess. 1:10 teaches those who are persecuted to look forward to the deliverance that is coming for each of them in particular. Life’s perspective is not complete without this hope: the return of Christ to take us Home.

2 Corinthians 5:5 states, “Now it is God who has made us for this very purpose” (having what is mortal swallowed up by life) “and has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.”

We now possess eternity inside us! Therefore it is a guarantee that our eternal bodies await us at the resurrection.

(Hence the mortal is made immortal, the corruptible is made incorruptible!)

In verses 6-8 of that same passage, Paul was saying that he was confident to be going to spend forever with Christ. He even went so far as to say that to be absent from this fleshly body is preferable, because then we will be in the presence of the Lord! Great concept, wonderful promise, something for which to look forward.

Read Philippians 3:13-14. It paints a picture of eager hope and expectation, leading to the desire to “press on towards the goal to win the prize for which God has called us, forgetting what is behind, and reaching out to what lies before us. Leave the past behind! God is not concerned with your yesterdays; He is a God of the present and He has your future in mind.

Hebrews 6:11-12 And we desire that every one of you do show the same diligence to the full assurance of hope unto the end; that ye be not slothful, but followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises. (KJV) Hope is an antidote for boredom or laziness. Train hard, and run well the race that God has set before you!

Revelation 22:20-21

When God makes a promise, you can bank on it. A book of hope, Revelation shows that evil has an end and that God is and always will be in control. It promises a great reward for those who believe God for their salvation in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Psalms 25:3 “Yea, let none that wait on thee be ashamed; let them be ashamed which transgress without cause.”

Waiting on the Lord is a past-time of the hopeful. Remember hope as confidence in God’s Word and His promises.

The word hope and similar verses are many in the Word of God; here are some:

Psalms 42:5 Why art thou cast down, O my soul? And why art thou disquieted in me? Hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him for the help of his countenance.

Anxiety attacks? Not anymore! God is able, more than able to accomplish what concerns me today, and SO MUCH MORE! When God smiles on us, it is like Manna from heaven! Dejected and blue? Try God! He’s “the quicker-picker-upper.”  

Psalms 62:5 “My soul, wait thou only upon God, for my expectation is from HIM.”

Put your trust in God alone. “In Christ Alone”, recorded by several artists, (Avalon, Natalie Grant, etc.) is a song that I love very much, and it is true! Also, the old Hymn goes, “I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly lean on Jesus’ Name.”

Psalms 119:74  They that fear thee will be glad when they see me; because I have hoped in thy word.

Anyone who hopes in God’s Word 1) has faith, 2) knows God’s Word, 3) knows the Lord.

Psalms 130:7 “Let Israel hope in the Lord: for with the Lord there is mercy, and with him is plenteous redemption.”

Mercy, grace, deliverance, redemption! There’s healing in the name of Jesus, amen? God has laid his hand upon us and has got our backs.  

Psalms 146:5 “Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the Lord his God.”

Why? Because he knows that He will never fail! Hope in God and contentment in Him are just the beginning of what it’s like to serve the Living God! There’s so much more, and I’m only just scratching the surface, no matter how long I’ve been a Christian. There is no end to His love, and He wants a relationship with you.

Psalms 147:11 The Lord taketh pleasure in them that fear him, in those that hope in his mercy.

Knowing the kind of power, or at least beginning to know it, that power that God possesses and being in awe of it, pleases God. It is essential to have reverence for God in order for us to gain wisdom and understanding. God’s mercy is forever enduring and without it, we would be lost…literally.  

Heb 10:23 (Amp) “So let us seize and hold fast and retain without wavering the hope we cherish and confess and our acknowledgement of it, for He who promised is reliable (sure) and faithful to His Word.

And who is the Word? Jesus! God cannot lie, or change His mind. Titus 1:2 says that God cannot lie. “In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began;”…His Word is irrevocable, and the commands He makes cannot come back to Him void, but will accomplish that thing for which they were meant. Bull’s-eye. Every time.

Heb 6:19 (KJV) “Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast….”

THE ANCHOR HOLDS! This is what keeps us centered and steadfast, walking the path and focused on the Lord of Life.  

Titus 2:13 “Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ;”

This chapter tells us what we can be doing while we are awaiting Christ’s return, and how to live a Godly life.

1 Thess. 5:8 “But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for an helmet, the hope of salvation.” This is the mindset of those who long to be in Christ’s presence forever. We just want to “Ride with the King”! This helmet and breastplate is part of the armor we should all, as Christians, wear.

I end this blog with the final scripture in Romans 15:13: Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost.

How to expound on a verse that so succinctly states it that way? God alone is the writer and the author and the creator of this study; I hope I have removed myself far enough from this endeavor to let God’s Words be effective in your life. Blessing and Honor and Glory and Power be to God! Amen.