What Does Hope Mean?
Pastor Jerry Wilhite,
author
The world does it's best to keep people down and out of any chance of true and real hope.
I mean the inner city poverty stricken people, people of the 3rd world countries, and even others of other areas that are struggling just to make it. Then as it seems they are finally getting a break and things are going their way something happens to pull the rug out from under the person(s).
Inner City
Those in inner city areas of the free world especially in the US seem to have less and less hope for making it today. Between the problems with making enough to pay monthly bills just to survive not to mention any net for problems.
Then add those who are seniors having to choose between food and medicine and the youth who see no way out and either join gangs or take drugs seem to be as lost as they come and hopeless.
With more babies born addicted to drugs or with AIDS in the inner city and education seems to fail more in the inner cities of the US. Add all this together along with more and more problems to long to list here and you can start to see the problems they have excepting hope as the Bible describes "Expectancy".
Third World Countries
In third world countries today they have all of the above and more so. So many of the average citizen does not have a chance at any medications forget medicine some (a lot) are not getting enough to eat. And then take in the fact the average income is less in a year than the lowest income in the US makes in a week.
True Hope For All
There is true hope for all but first a person has to know it and believe it to accept it.
I know it is hard to believe there is Hope real Hope as the Bible describes but I can say Hope is real and true but it requires real belief the belief found in faith and faith is believing without a doubt.
So how do we have faith or any belief in what we do not see without a doubt?
This is where you have to make a decision to except Jesus as Lord and Savior and then listen to God. Take the time daily to actually hear His voice and then be obediant and from their Hope as the Bible describes will be real to you.
Why do we not have Bible type Hope?
(Remember that the world is ruled by evil (Satan) even if you do not believe or not, does not make it any less true or real. And the world will and has done all it can to divide us from each other and from God but most of all from the truth. I know many have come and said they know the truth and speak it and then have been found not to know the truth. That is what makes this ministry and all of us of it different. We do not say believe us, we ask you verify all we say with God. You can is it that hard to really believe you can hear from Him especially if you believe He is and He hears you?)
Hosea 4
6. My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children.
(Read Revelations 1:6 about being a priest we all are)
So how does one learn and how then do they believe when everything they see tells them there is no hope or even a chance at hope?
First thing you need to understand due to a lack of knowledge we are destroyed even in the world this is true but more so in the word and the kingdom of God.
In the world those who earn min. wage or less are mostly those who either did not graduate high school or at best did graduate.
In the word and the kingdom of God there is knowledge for all, but first you have to hear, and then you have to listen and believe.
To start with understand hope in the word of God is not a wish but it is expectancy.
So to have hope in the word is to expect.
Romans 10
What most do not realize is that the above verse is saying "faith cometh by hearing and understand by Jesus. Remember in John 1:14 we read and the word became flesh and dwelt among us.
So how do you hear from Jesus and how do we get understanding?
John 14
26. But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.
In John 4:23-24 we read that God is a spirit and the only way to worship Him is in Spirit and truth.
And from the spirit Jesus said we would be TAUGHT ALL THINGS, not just that of God but all things.
Now how can we be TAUGHT ALL THINGS unless we are listening to the one who will teach us.
Hebrews 11
Notice the first word in the above verse is NOW, not later but Now.
Now faith means faith is for now, and those who believe without doubt NOW, can count on that faith to be the substance of things (anything) hoped (expect) for, the evidence (proof) of things not yet seen.
Hebrews 11
6. But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.
Only by faith can we please God, but notice it states He is a rewarder of them that DILIGENTLY SEEK HIM.
Only by faith can we hear from Him and actually hear, listen and understand.
From faith we can have healing, relationships and so much more.
1 Peter 2
24. Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.
SO many say "by His stripes we are healed" which means maybe healed or soon, but actually it says "by whose stripes ye were healed" meaning it is already done, no wait all that is left is our faith connecting to the healing.
The hope we are talking about is real and true and like anything that is good it does not come over night and requires some work.
So you start by listening instead of talking to God.
1 Peter 5
7.
|3956| all
|3588| the
|3308| anxiety
|5216| of you
|1977| Throwing
|1909| onto
|0846| Him,
|3754| because
|0846| to Him
|3199| it matters
|4012| concerning
|5216| you.
Strong's Ref. # 3308
Romanized merimna
Pronounced mer'-im-nah
from GSN3307 (through the idea of distraction); solicitude:
KJV--care.(anxiety)
To me it is more than just awesome that God cares for us so much that He is concerned about all of our cares, but that he is concerned about any and all things that distract us.
What distracts?
And the list can go on and on in Genesis two of the first cities God had problems with one where they were building a tower He separated them in their languages so they no longer could stay in the city. The other I am referring to is Sodom and He destroyed it, we know that God prefers we depend on Him. But when we live in cities we tend to depend on each others, on technology, anything and everything except Him. Those who had farms, ranches, etc had to depend on Him for everything the rain, the sun, the harvest, etc. Not others, not technology but Him.
We can not leave the cities and start farming or ranching or can we.
But if we do not, we can learn to depend on Him when we live in the city as well in the country.
Today we need Him more than ever and we need to depend on Him to help us in the inner cities as well as the country.
What it takes individually is being one with Him and that can only come when we listen to and hear Him personally.
As a group we can do this when we are of one mind in one place.
Acts 2
1. And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place.
When the apostles were of one mind (one accord) and in one place the Holy Spirit fell on them.
Mark 11
22. And Jesus answering saith unto them, Have faith in God.
23. For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith.
24. Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.
25. And when ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have ought against any: that your Father also which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.
26. But if ye do not forgive, neither will your Father which is in heaven forgive your trespasses.
In Mark 11:22-26 we learn we can have whatever we pray for but there are two requirements, at the end we are told to forgive. Un-forgiveness places a huge wedge between us and our faith and faith in God.
But the first requirement is to have faith in God.
Strong's Ref. # 4102
Romanized pistis
Pronounced pis'-tis
from GSN3982; persuasion, i.e. credence; moral conviction (of religious truth, or the truthfulness of God or a religious teacher), especially reliance upon Christ for salvation; abstractly, constancy in such profession; by extension, the system of religious (Gospel) truth itself:
KJV--assurance, belief, believe, faith, fidelity.
Faith in God is a conviction He is and that what He says is real and true and from there all else does not matter and this is how we achieve Hope as in the Bible, the type that causes expectancy. The Hope that is in the Bible are for those in 3rd world countries, inner cities and any where else a man, woman or child can be found on the earth.
Just remember in the OT the law did not complete this, this was completed in Grace due to what Jesus did for us.