Beyond Hope

Hebrews 11:¹ “Now faith brings our hopes into reality and becomes the foundation needed to acquire the things we long for. It is all the evidence required to prove what is still unseen.” (TPT)

Faith is NOT Hope. Faith needs hope. Faith stands on hope. But faith goes beyond hope. Faith, the classical scriptural definition of faith is the substance of the things hoped for, the evidence of the things not seen. The things that are not seen, that are hoped for, when you have the substance and the evidence, you have faith. Until then, you have hope, and it is okay to have hope because a hopeless life is a useless life, a rudderless life. It is okay to have hope, but you can only operate supernaturally by faith. As you expand the place of your tent, you need faith, not hope. Hope is different from faith. Faith is not hope. As you enlarge to the front, the back, the right, and the left in the Name of Jesus, you need faith and not hope. You need faith!

Faith is the confident assurance that what we hope for is going to happen.  It is the evidence of things we cannot yet see. It is having the confident assurance, having the evidence of that thing you cannot see. Hope is wanting something to be that is not and having no evidence, no assurance that it will be. You want something to be, but you do not have an assurance that it will be, yet you are hopeful that it will be. For instance, you throw a party in your house, and you invite people. You also invite the president even though you do not have a personal relationship with the president. You sent an invitation to his office, and you are hopeful.

Do you know if the president will come? No. But did you send an invitation? Yes. Is your invitation enough to give you an assurance that he will come? Of course not. You cannot tell your friends confidently that the president is coming to your party because you are just hopeful that he will come. But what if the president gets your invitation and decides to surprise a citizen. So, the president calls you and confirms that he will attend your party but only for thirty minutes. After the call, his protocol and security people call you and make the arrangements. At first, you probably would think it is a prank call because it is unbelievable.

That is how hope is. When you are hopeful and the assurance appears in a particular form, you doubt it. You do not have faith. Now, if after the calls, the head of protocol for the president shows up at your house one week before the party to set up surveillance. Your hope becomes faith. You will not just tell your friends that you invited the president. You will tell them that the president is coming. That is the difference between hope and faith.

Prayer: Father, please open my eyes to the areas when I am operating in hope and not in faith and help me push past hope into actual faith in God on all things, in Jesus Name. Amen!