Titus 2 Men And Women

Mending HOPE
by Sharon Merhalski

Mending HOPE

"I have set the Lord always before me: because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved. Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoiceth: my flesh also shall rest in hope."

Psalm 16:8-9
This title for our first women’s  conference and the theme verses were born in what I call a tent of meeting--a time of sitting still with God...listening.

So many of us are soooooo busy for God.  And yet the more that I counsel the more I realize with that "busy-ness" too often comes an emptiness.  Concerning those people who are not busy but rather ‘resting on the promises’ and doing nothing for the Lord---there also resides an emptiness.  Why?  I believe it is because HOPE---the power of motivation---has all but vanished from the lives of far too many Christians.

The Bible says in James 2:26, "For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also."  Without HOPE we won’t work for God---so we have no basis for faith.  The Bible also says, "without faith it is impossible to please God".  HOPE motivates us to work which gives us faith....it is our anticipation of a task being accomplished.

(Ps. 27:13-14) "I had fainted, unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living."...fainted, unless, I had believed (trusted) to see.  My choice is to believe---to trust to see---to have HOPE in Who God Is and what His Word says.

We so often talk about faith and love...but HOPE---what is it?  Is it necessary? Does HOPE need to be mended?...either a stitch here and there when it wanes/starts to frey---or a major repair/re-weaving, when it shreds.

Webster’s Dictionary defines hope;  "to desire with expectation of fulfillment"
IN our conference verse --- in the Strong’s Concordance---hope is defined as a place of refuge; (security) (trust); assurance, confidence, hope

The key is in verse 8 of Psalm 16: "I have set the Lord always before me: because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved."  The key to our HOPE is  stated in the first phrase in verse 8 and depends on where we have sat the Lord in our lives.  I have---at times---lived right where I see so many Christians living --putting the Lord beside them as they walk through their days----beside them so they can---IF NEEDED---just turn their heads and ask Him for direction. 

BUT--the Word of God tells us that God goes BEFORE us---and God is Sovereign and in control of ALL. "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose." (Romans 8:28)

We are called by God "That we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ."...with the assurance that we can do so regardless of our circumstances. "I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me." (Philippians 4:13) The word strengtheneth in this verse me means the Lord’s strength in me.

AND these facts of Scripture are truth and should give us anticipation of things to come...HOPE!!!  The Holy Spirit came to take up residence in each person who accepts Jesus Christ as their Saviour---He came to live in us--to seal us--to keep us and teach us to abide in the Lord..."That we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ.In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise, Which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory" (Eph. 1:12-14) .

 "To HOPE is to anticipate.  It is more than dreaming,, however.  It is possessing within ourselves an expectation that someday there will be the fulfillment of that desire...(and for the Christian our desire should always be to be in the perfect will of God)  (That) It (our desire) will become a reality.  Hope always looks to the future, it’s always on tiptoes.  It keeps us going.  It makes a dismal today bearable because it promises a brighter tomorrow.  Without hope, something inside all of us dies." (Chuck Swindoll)

 "Take from a man his wealth, and you hinder him; take from him his purpose, and you slow him down.  But take from man his hope, and you stop him.  He can go on without wealth, and even without purpose, for a while.  But he will not go on without hope." (C. Neil Strait, "Quote Unquote")

Does God think the matter of HOPE is that vital to our lives?

"Hope deferred maketh the heart sick: but when the desire (the longing, the HOPE) cometh, it is a tree of life."  (Proverbs 13:12)

It is a proven fact that hope must be present or disease sets in.  A comprehensive series of tests and studies have proven that hope and survival are inseparably connected.   The phrases "steal our enthusiasm" and "take away our hope" are synonymous.

Hopelessness is the opposite of hope.  It is the state of not expecting your desire to come to pass.  There is no confidence, patience, expectation, and in its worse state, not even a desire.  Hopelessness is a state of emptiness.  There is no trust in God when there is hopelessness.  Hopelessness disables a person from accomplishing what God wants them to do.

This is what Satan wants to do to a person living by faith.  If all hope can be taken from a person then faith will not be activated. The hopeless person is prone to go into depression (which is a state of hopelessness) and be ineffective in life.  Stay in the Word of God and look up to God and out to others (Psalm 42) to keep up your hope in God Who continues to be faithful (trustworthy, unmoved, stable).  Remember that you must base everything on God’s Word so that you can have confidence--knowing His will for your life.

There are many things in life that attempt to rob us of our HOPE. One of the biggest is our mind set of how we view pain and problems... Rather than adopt a victor’s stance (i.e.,this will be beneficial, this is no unfair accident of life, God is in this), we resort to the pathetic wail of victim (Why?  Woe is me.  If only people knew how bad I’ve got it.  Will it ever end?) 

Hope dies with that kind of thinking.  It is crushed beneath the load of our self-appointed misery. Problems do not go away.  They must be worked through with the Word of God or else they remain forever a barrier to the growth and development of our spirit.

One of the biggest thieves of HOPE is anxiety/worry.  It immobilizes us by reminding us of all of the things that are wrong and bad and threatening. And the second biggest thief of HOPE is an enemy we are not keenly enough aware of---we too often fail to have a discerning awareness of Satan and his schemes.  Remember---he is certainly aware of us and he absolutely despises whatever represents God and whoever is carrying out God’s work.  Too many Christians have the attitude that Satan couldn’t care less about them when the truth is that he couldn’t care more.

"To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory:" (Colossians 1:27)

"Now our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God, even our Father, which hath loved us, and hath given us everlasting consolation and good hope through grace,"  (II Thessalonians 2:16)

"In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began;"  (Titus 1:2)

"Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ;"  (Titus 2:13)

"That by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us:"  (Hebrews 6:18)

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