hope

One of the greatest gifts God gave to His people is hope.  Hope is not just a passive word.  By definition hope is intense, earnest expectation.        When you have hope you expect things to turn to your favor.  Men who have no hope will eventually surrender to depression and if they don’t deal with it, it can turn suicidal.
 
1 Corinthians 13:13 And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three, but the greatest of these is charity. (love)
 
Why is love the greatest of the three?  Because faith and hope work by love.  The devil and the ungodly cannot operate in these gifts because they require love and they have no access to this kind of love.  No man can have faith or hope without love.  Every word the Lord has spoken will instill hope in every man who believes His Word.  Christians ought to be the most hopeful bunch in the world.

Ephesians 2:12 At one time you were without Christ, being alien from the covenant of Israel, having no hope, and without God in the world.
 
If a person cannot find hope in Christ then he must take hope in what man offers.  Men offer hope all the time but they are powerless to fulfill their promise, predicaments beyond their control can easily vanquish all hope.
 
Numbers 23:19 God is not a man that He should lie, if He says it He will do it, if He has spoken He will make it good.
 
One of the biggest mistakes Christians make is when they compare God to man.  It is impossible for God to lie and it is impossible for men to speak the truth every time.  Every word God ever spoke is full of hope and yet people are always searching for another source.  When God ministers hope He is telling us that there are better things to come.
 
Hebrews 6:18-19 By two immutable things, the body and blood of Jesus, we have a strong consolation to lay hold of the hope set before us, which hope we have as an anchor of the soul.
 
When a ship wants to stay in one place for a period of time they will let down their anchor.  The anchor is designed to hook into the bottom of the sea and hold the position of the ship.  God’s promises are what we anchor our souls to, we do not want to drift away from what God has prepared for us.  If we don’t anchor our souls(lives) to something solid we will drift away and perhaps have a shipwreck.  I know a lot of good Christians who are adrift, they are at the mercy of the elements.
 
If we don’t anchor our vessel to the words of Christ the world will take us wherever it wants to take us.  The world will take us further than we want to go and keep us there longer than we want to stay.  You cannot discourage someone who is full of hope, their faith is in Jesus not circumstances.  Do you know the source of all hope?  It is a manifestation of the love of God.  I wonder sometimes, how many people really know that God loves them.  Those who know live in hope every day of their lives.