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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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