Living In Hope

Today I wanted to discuss a message that was shared in church recently on hope.

We all have hopes in our lives, whether you believe in Christ or not. One thing we are called to do as Christians is to live in hope. There are going to be times inlife where we will face disappointment, but we have an eternal hope. We can not achieve great things for Christ, unless we live with a great hope. Just as 1 Peter 1:3-4 tells us -

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade—kept in heaven for you

 We have a great hope in Christ Jesus.

Hope is the foundation of Christian faith. As it says in Hebrews 11:1

Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see.

Although we cant actually see the future, we know that its in good hands, God's hands. Faith is the conviction that directs us towards our expectations and hopes. And faith comes from the word of God as it says in Romans 10:17

Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ.

When we talk about living in hope, there are three levels of activating our faith in line with hope.

1. Abstract Faith
This is a mental hope, for example having a hope in creation.

2. Practical Faith
This is giving practical expression to our faith. This means actually activating our faith, for example when we give a 10th to the church. An example from the Bible includes Noah, where he was asked to build the Ark, which took him 120 years, but he didnt give up, for he had faith.

3. Whole-hearted Faith 
This is where we lay down our lives for our faith, we put our life in Gods hands. Through this kind of faith we will be greatly rewarded, as it says in Numbers 14:24 -

But because my servant Caleb has a different spirit and follows me wholeheartedly, I will bring him into the land he went to, and his descendants will inherit it.

Hope is actually the joyful anticipation of good in the promises of a never changing God. For we believe in a living God that works in our lives. When we are born again, we have Christ living within us, a living Christ! For these promises were given to us from the beginning as it says in Titus 1:2 -

a faith and knowledge resting on the hope of eternal life, which God, who does not lie, promised before the beginning of time

We cannot live the Christian life without the power of Christ within us, we have the Holy Spirit within us, as 1 Cor 6:19 says -

Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own

But we must remember hope is a choice. We are to put our hope in God and then we are to also praise Him. We must not allow our negative thinking control us, we must put our hope in Gods word.

I have jumped around a bit in this post, but I hope there was something you can take away from it. We must acknowledge that we cant live the Christian life without Christ within us. Lets confess what God confesses and not get caught up in the downward spiral. Then we must praise Him. Sometimes we have words that come out but it takes a bit longer for our feelings to really catch up with our mouths. We must get our feeling in line and put our hope in God!

For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.

 In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express.

(Romans 8:24-26)