High Hopes
Hebrews 10:23 says: "Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful."
There are two words in that verse which I want to examine - confession and hope. Before I learned how to walk by faith, all I lived on was hope. But hope will not change your circumstances. It takes faith to release the power of God to change your circumstances. Hope will only keep you alive until things change. If you never bring faith to bear upon your circumstances, all you will do is live in hope. Your circumstances will never change.
However, in order to really walk by faith, you have to have hope. Hope is a goal setter. What is your goal? My goal or objective is to reach the top of the mountain in all areas of life. Everybody should have a goal. If you do not set a goal you will never reach one. This is one reason why many people, and even many Christians, never achieve anything. They never set goals. They have nothing for their faith to obtain. Hope sets the goal and faith achieves it.
Hebrews 11:1 says: "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."
Hope by itself has no substance. Faith adds substance to your hope. If you do not have hope then you have nothing for your faith to obtain. On the other hand, if you have hope and do not have faith then you have nothing by which to obtain that which you hope for.
I want to challenge each of you to high hopes this New Year 2009. I have high hopes and I obtain the goals I set. Though there still are some that have yet to manifest. I know that some things take more time than others.
I want to challenge you to have high hopes, to set some goals for 2009. If you do not set any goals you will never reach any. Now be careful and use wisdom when you set your goals. Do not set them so high that you become frustrated and lose hope. If you do, it will cause you to give up and do nothing.
Have you set goals concerning your financial and spiritual needs? Do you have any goals with regard to your desires, your family, your husband, your wife, your children, your job, your career, your education, your ministry or your physical health?
You need to have high hopes and there are steps you can take to obtain any goal. The first one is to remain steadfast, as it says in Hebrews 10:23. You have to be tenacious and hold on to your goals. Do not let go until your goal manifests. It takes that kind of attitude. Stay with it even if it takes forever. It may take a while for your goal to come to pass, but if you remain steadfast sooner or later it will manifest.
First Corinthians 15:58 says: "Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labour is not in vain in the Lord."
If you want to reach your high hopes you have to be steadfast. Even if hell rises up against you, if the water rises, you stick with the goal. This is what steadfast means. It takes discipline and commitment to be constant.
Jesus said in John 15:18-19: "If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you. "If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you."
The enemy will put pressure on you when you attempt to reach your goal. But you can handle it. Jesus did. You are in good company. In fact, you are running with the best. He has already warned you. If they persecuted Him they will persecute you.
Situations may arise in which you are unable to figure out what to do. We all have encountered this at one time or another in our lives. When you are walking in the Word and by the Holy Spirit you have divine, inside information to meet your goal.
Second Corinthians 4:8-9 says: "We are hard pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed;"
If you are steadfast, standing through the persecution, deliverance is at hand. You can obtain your High Hopes. Be Blessed!