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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")

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