Hope

"Let us hold fast the confession of our hope."

Hope is often misunderstood; it is not a "maybe so" word. Rather it means "a confident expectation."

When God first appeared to Abraham, He promised, "I am your shield, your exceedingly great reward" (Gen 15:1). Abraham had no natural hope of having children with a barren wife so his answer was a bit despondent:

But Abram replied, “O Sovereign Lord, what good are all your blessings when I don’t even have a son? Since you’ve given me no children, Eliezer of Damascus, a servant in my household, will inherit all my wealth. You have given me no descendants of my own, so one of my servants will be my heir.” (Gen 15:2-3, NLT)

It was clear, this man had little or no hope, and God knew Abraham couldn't receive His promises unless he did. So the Lord took him outside that evening and told him to count the stars. I believed this is how it happened. Abraham eventually fell asleep while counting the innumerable stars. The next morning the Lord woke him with a question, "Did you count them all?" Abraham said, "No, there are too many!"

God has the answer He was looking for and followed it with, "Your descendants will be like that - too many to count!"(Gen15:5, NLT) God has placed within him divine hope - a clear picture of His promise to Abraham - multitudes of children. Whenever he looked at the stars he was reminded of God's promise and heard countless offspring cry, " Father Abraham, Father Abraham!" In reference to this the New testament says Abraham:

Who against hope believed in hope, that he might become the father of many nations, according to that which was spoken, So shall thy seed be. (Rom 4:18 KJV)

What was spoken? "Your descendants will be like that - too many to count!" Without natural hope, the divine stepped in to overshadow the seen with the promise. Divine hope looked beyond the evident into God's realm of confident expectation. Abraham chose to override the obvious with the divine. In fact, Scripture tells he was "fully convinced that what He had promised He was also able to perform" (Rom 4:21). He received the promise by faith empowered by hope. We are told,

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for. (Heb 11:1)

Our faith gives substance to the hope or promises of God. As we've seen in Abraham, divine hope is the vision or blueprint of God's will that we are yet unable to see with our natural eye. Divine hope is extremely important, for without hope, faith has nothing to give substance to. The Word of God not only places faith within our hearts, it also gives us hope, or vision, to the faith.

It could be compared to a collection of building materials, such as tile, windows, shingles, wood, cement, bricks, and so forth. We could have all resources, yet without a blueprint, the building process would be a disaster! You may think, I could build without a blueprint. Perhaps if there were a blueprint in your mind, but there would still need to be some sort of plan.

- Drawing Near

In what/who do you place your hopes in ?